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10 



Without Sound of 
Hammer 



EDGAR L; VINCENT 



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Cincinnati: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 
New York: EATON & MAINS 



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COPYRIGHT, I914, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



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1 



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WITHOUT SOUND OF 
HAMMER 



The Dream of a King 

Sitting in his house, three thousand 
years ago, a king had a beautiful dream. 
It may have been at the twiHght hour, 
when the long rays of the setting sun fell 
softly through the windows of the palace, 
turning everything they touched into gold 
and awakening memory from its slumber- 
ing. God had Seen very good to him; the 
king was at peace with the world. It had 
not always been so. SHpping its leash, his 
mind went back through the years until 
he once more threaded the rough moun- 
tain paths of the homeland, watching 
his father's sheep. How fondly memory 
touched the cords as he recalled those 
early days! Not more sweet had been the 
notes of his harp in the long ago than was 
the music wakened now upon the heart- 
strings of the old man's soul when stirred 
by the fingers of time! 

Very full had been the years which lay 
between. From shepherd boy to king of a 
5 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

mighty nation! Up through joy and 
through sorrow, pleasure and pain, suc- 
cess and failure, to the very pinnacle of 
earthly grandeur! What a story it was, 
as David read it over again through the 
mist of the silent years! 

Is the cup full, then? The king asks 
himself the question, and something like a 
doubt rises to mar the joy of the moment. 
He turns to Nathan, the man who stands 
most close to him of any in all Israel, a 
new light in his eye, his hand trembling 
with the excitement of the great thought 
just coming into being in his soul. His 
voice thrills with emotion as he speaks: 

*'See, now, I dwell in a house of cedar, 
but the ark of God dwelleth within cur- 
tains!'' 

Quickly the aged prophet reads the 
soul of the king. 

'*Go, do all that is in thine heart, for 
the Lord is with thee!'' 

Did they two, sitting together in the 
twilight, plan the details of the house 
which was to be? It would not be strange 
if they did, nor that David should at last, 
far on in the night, go to his bed to dream 
over and over again of the days gone by, 
and to see in his fancy the walls of the 
temple he longed to build as the last glad 
service of his life, his supreme offering of 
love to God in return for the goodness 
which had led him through all the years. 
6 



I 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

But before the light of morning fell 
through his lattice, Nathan knew that he 
had let his heart run ahead of the will of 
Jehovah. A vision of another kind than 
that which had made glad the dreams of 
the king the evening before came to him. 
Was it easy, do you think, for Nathan to 
go into the king's presence that day and 
carry out the mission which had been laid 
upon him? To tell David how sore a dis- 
appointment was in store for him? That, 
although God had indeed taken him "from 
the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to 
be ruler over the people, over Israel,'* and 
although he would build for David a house 
that should never fall, still it must be left 
for the king's son to carry out the dream 
of the temple? Like steel in the heart of 
the prophet must it have been to deliver 
that message, particularly when it came to 
saying that the reason why this great long- 
ing was to be denied lay in the fact that 
the king's hands had been so stained with 
blood that they were not fitted for a work 
so pure and so holy as he had contemplated. 

If sorrow also pierced the soul of the 
king as he listened to the word which had 
come to him from Jehovah, it must have 
vanished very quickly in the joy of know- 
ing that God had determined to establish 
his seed on the throne forever, for not one 
word of disappointment shows through the 
beautiful song of praise and thankful sub- 

7 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

mission which he lifts up while sitting be- 
fore the Lord. The dream had not faded; 
it was only delayed for a little. He would 
not suffer his heart to be stirred by any 
feeling of bitterness, for was it not his own 
son who would in the days to come carry 
out his cherished plan? What were a few 
years of postponement, when compared to 
the exaltation which God was soon to be- 
stow upon him ! 

Very tender is David's heart as he goes 
in to meet Jehovah. With soul filled to 
overflowing with gratitude, he breaks out 
into one of the richest psalms ever sung, 
acknowledging all the blessings which had 
been showered upon him, and losing him- 
self in rapture at the thought of the ef- 
fulgence of the glory yet to be. Then he 
rises bravely to do all in his power to make 
ready the material which should one day 
enter into the construction of the house 
that could never be to him more than a 
lovelit dream. If he could not carve the 
statue, he could choose the marble in the 
quarry. Though it were denied him to eat 
of the fruit of the tree, he could at least 
plant the seed from which it would grow. 
His might not be the joy of saiUng out to 
the conquest of nations beyond the sea, 
but he could lay the keel of the ship which 
should bear the victor to his triumph! 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

** Neither Hammer nor Ax " 

Eleven years of toil and the dream of 
David came true. Faithful to the com- 
mission laid upon him by his father, Solo- 
mon set himself about the mighty task be- 
fore him. How strong are the words he 
addresses to Hiram, King of Tyre! 

'*I purpose to build an house unto the 
name of the Lord God!'* 

*'Ever a lover of David/' and true to 
Solomon for the sake of his father, Hiram 
joyously responded to the call for help 
'* concerning timber of cedar and concern- 
ing timber of fir.'* Not more faithfully 
could he have labored if the house had 
been designed for his own glory. Only 
when the last stone was laid and the fin- 
ishing touch put upon the building did 
Hiram stay his hand. Never was temple 
wrought like that! Without sound of 
hammer ! 

"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; 
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung!** 

Far away in the woods of Lebanon the 
timbers were cut and hewed, the royal 
gift of the King of Tyre. Borne to the sea 
and floated in rafts to Joppa, the heavy 
beams were carried across the country to 
the capital city, where they were lifted to 
place in silence; no sound of ax woke the 
quiet of the sacred mount. Before they 
were brought to their niche in the founda- 
9 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

tion walls, the great stones were cut and 
carved from the quarry. The ring of chisel 
fell not on the ear as they were one after 
another laid side by side in place. Away 
in the valley of the Jordan, ''in the clay- 
ground between Succoth and Zarthan," 
were the furnaces in which were cast the 
basins and pieces of bronze. Not even the 
dust from the fires of those red-hot forges 
must fall on the site of the temple that 
was to be. The mines of Parvaim yielded 
their tribute of gold for the temple service 
and the interior adornments; but never a 
stroke of tool disturbed the solemn silence 
of the holy mount. The panels of costly 
wood all received their delicate tracery of 
lilies and pomegranates in some far-distant 
workman's shop, so that the noise of no 
chisel might wake the stillness of the sacred 
spot. Even the precious stones went to 
their place in the same impressive silence! 
At last the dream was realized. Grand, 
glorious, beautiful, beyond David's most 
golden fancy; and all without sound of 
hammer! 

Another Dream in the Firelight 

Alone in the firelight sits another king. 
Ribbons of red, torn from the heart of the 
old maple, lap the fagots cheerily, then 
fling their pencils of gold away to drive the 
shadows from the room, lingering tenderly 
on the face of the dreamer sitting there. 
10 



I 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 



His vision, too, is of a temple, built, 
like that of David's son, to the glory of 
God. This also has its inspiration in love, 
and must be glorious as was the royal gift 
of the man of three thousand years ago. 
Like it, too, this temple must be reared 
without sound of hammer. 

True, somewhere the sound of axes will 
waken the echoes as the beams are cut 
from the forest; somewhere steel will ring 
on steel, as the blocks of granite are riven 
from the quarry and shaped for their 
place in the temple walls; somewhere the 
fire must glow fiercely and the forges cast 
their gleams of red skyward, until the ore 
from the mountain has been fashioned for 
God's service; and somewhere the mallet 
and the chisel must glint, as the workman 
carves the flowers which shall adorn and 
beautify this house the king purposes in 
his heart to build to Jehovah. 

But after all the clash and the storm, 
when the stress of the busy day is over, 
these are all to be brought together and 
laid up silently in the building of God's 
temple; for this is His way of making the 
things which endure. 

Out of the earth He lifts the particles 
of matter He laid away out of sight in the 
long ago and changes them into wood 
with which He wraps the century-old oak. 
No one sees the mysterious work while it 
is in progress; no ear ever catches the 
11 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

faintest sound of hammer nor ax. He 
gives the word, and the stream gathers up 
bits of mineral God once hid away along 
its banks, sweeping them into some little 
cavern, to lie there until other particles 
have been folded about them, so that at 
last the agate is born. How silently the 
stone grew! No one but God knew how 
or when it was done! 

Or it may be like the wound in the 
side of the little creature of the sea, which 
sends it to the bottom, hundreds of feet 
below the surface, to build in the darkness 
out of its pain the glittering thing the 
pearl-diver brings up at the risk of his life 
to shine at the neck of a queen. No sound. 
So silently must this temple of the other 
king be built! 

"Is It I? " 

But who is this other king, dreaming 
in the firehght? Is it you? Is it I? O, 
friend of my heart, has not the vision 
come to you and to me? In our heart of 
hearts have we not longed to build to the 
glory of God a temple which shall stand 
beyond the reach of time? Even now do 
we not feel the thrill of the holy passion 
to begin now, this very day, to build for 
Him a house, a temple of the soul? The 
dream is glorious; it is worthy. Will not 
God give it His approval? Listening, may 
we not hear not the voice of the prophet, 
12* 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

but of God Himself whispering to us out of 
the shadows, ''Go, do all that is in thine 
heart, for the Lord is with thee!'' 

Can we do it? The work is so mighty 
and we are so weak! Listen again ! 

^^ Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be 
not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will 
strengthen thee; yea, I will uphold thee with 
the right hand of My righteousness!'^ 

And can we longer doubt? 

Out of the Old 

Do you remember the day when you 
moved out of the old house into the new? 
It may be the home of your boyhood was 
a humble house, built of logs cut from the 
woods once crowding to the very doorway. 
Even yet you recall its wide chinks, 
roughly stopped with clay. But there 
came a time when Father said, *'A better 
time is coming for us, Wife! We will have 
a new home! It is surely coming, little 
ones! I see it in the near future!" How 
your heart bounded at the word, although 
you could scarce yet realize all the words 
might mean. Still, your boyish mind 
could understand, though but faintly, that 
the change would bring more of joy, more 
of comfort, and brighter hopes for the days 
to come. 

What if for a while there were months 
when you lived out in the plainest quarters, 
while the new house was in the building? 
13 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

That would soon pass. Hope sang a 
cheery song every day ; and when the logs 
of the old house were lost in the fire and 
smoke, and just on the same spot where 
the old home had been the walls and 
beams of the better building were laid, 
with what joy you ran on the timbers, 
perhaps with your feet all bare! With 
how much of interest you watched the 
workmen as they lifted the house, piece 
by piece, to its place! The old had been 
left behind. A little farther on, and the 
new would pass from dream to realization ! 
Speaking of the happiness which came 
to him when he turned out of the pathway 
of sin and set his steps on the shining way 
of light, a friend says: ^'Everything looked 
so differently to me! The grass was 
greener; the flowers were more beautiful; 
the faces of my dear ones, and even of 
those I once thought most unlovely, now 
looked so good to me!'* It was the joy of 
moving out of the old house. 

Over the Threshold 

Is not this true of us, as we stand to-day 
with our faces turned away from the old 
life, the inspiration of the temple which 
is stirring our hearts to their very depths, 
and awakening in our souls sweeter songs 
than ever rang there before? What are 
we leaving? A cave, mayhap, with its 
14 



r 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 



dust, its shadows, and its cobwebs; a 
building of logs, through the cracks of 
which the winds of winter whistled mourn- 
fully, bringing the snowdrift to our pillow 
long before morning; a poor, imperfect, 
unlovely life, with rags and tattered shreds 
of broken purposes. 

But, to what are we coming? Oh, the 
joy of it! We look forward to the temple 
of beauteous walls, of costly service of gold 
and silver and bronze, of tracery of lilies 
and unfolding roses — a temple all-glorious 
within, for is it not the dwelling place of 
the Spirit Himself? We know it, because 
the Word tells us so. 

**Know ye not that your body is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, 
which ye have of God, and ye are not 
your own? For ye are bought with a 
price. . . .'' 

Then joyfully we will step over the 
threshold of the old life, with all its failures, 
all its heartaches, and all its bitterness. 
With firm purpose we set our hand to the 
work of building the temple of the pure 
heart. God grant it may be so fair that 
one day we may hear Him say to us: 

'*I have heard thy prayer and thy sup- 
plication, that thou hast made before Me: 
I have hallowed this house which thou 
hast built to put My name there forever; 
and Mine eye and Mine heart shall be 
there perpetually ! ' * 

15 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

On the Rock Foundation 

The people of the whole state, and par- 
ticularly those of the city in which it stood, 
were not long ago startled by the report 
that one of the largest buildings of the 
country was settling, so that arm-wide 
fassures had come in its walls, rendering it 
no longer safe for occupation. In haste 
the city summoned its inspectors and bade 
them find out the truth. If the building 
were indeed in such a dangerous condition, 
they were to ascertain what could be done 
to strengthen it; and in any case they 
were to determine the cause of this terrible 
state of affairs. 

The inspectors did as they were bidden 
and made their report as quickly as pos- 

u ; .,5'^^'' ^^^^"' ^" their opinion, could 
the building be made really safe. For a 
time Its walls might be strengthened, but 
soon the entire structure must be taken 
down or it would fall, carrying death and 
destruction to all who might happen to be 
m It; for the foundation was not secure- 
the earth beneath was fast sinking. The 
builders had not laid its lower walls on the 
rock ! 

Only the Rock Standeth Sure! 

Was it last week you saw a man pass 
this way with a stride like a king? His 
head was erect. In his eye flashed the light 
16 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

of hope and success. Men who met him 
bowed and smiled, counting themselves 
fortunate to be numbered as his friends. 
His note of hand would be taken for any 
amount. His advice was sought in matters 
of state and nation. His fame had gone 
far out into the world. And that was only 
last week! 

Just now he passed again. Who was 
that with him? Surely not an officer of 
the law? And yet he wore the blue and 
his hand was on the arm of the man with 
the kingly air of a few days ago. How can 
this be? A prisoner? Aye, a prisoner, on 
his way to the bar! And why? Ah! the 
shine from the altar of sin fell upon his 
face, and when he looked up there was a 
stain on his forehead that will brand him 
till his dying day! He put out his hand 
to touch a thing which was not his to touch, 
and as he pulled it back he saw that it was 
scarred forever! 

And yet, why? His life had not been 
founded upon the rock, and he went down. 

When the men of Tyre who built the 
temple of Solomon came to lay its founda- 
tion walls, they found that there was much 
for them to do before they could place in 
position the lower beams. They must 
clear away the rubbish which littered the 
chosen spot upon Mount Moriah; they 
must dig deep down by the side of the 
cliff and cleave away the earth and crum- 
2 17 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

bling stone till they came to solid ground ; 
for God's house must be founded upon the 
solid rock. Only when they had reached 
the firm foundation could they hope to 
build securely. 

Our One Foundation 

Success or failure, life or death, heaven 
or hell, depend upon how we lay the founda- 
tion of our life-temple. How may we be 
sure we are right? Stand still and hearken 
to the voice which speaks to us out of the 
Word: 

'^Take heed how ye build; for other 
foundation can no man lay than is laidy 
which is Jesus Christ ^ 

Men have tried to build upon other 
foundations and found out that the words 
of God's servant are true. We get in a 
hurry sometimes, and want to see results 
as soon as possible. We make haste to 
scrape away a bit of the surface and lay 
the walls of our temple there. ^* It is well ! '* 
we say. **God will not notice the founda- 
tion, if only the superstructure be beauti- 
ful; or if He does, He will let it pass, for 
He is good and will be merciful!" 

So thousands have said, and their house 
has gone down to ruin ! Beautifully-carved 
stones, beams from the choicest of woods, 
gold, silver, and bronze from the richest 
of mines — all gone down to dust and ashes 
18 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

because the foundation was not sure! Oh, 
the wretched hopes, the agonizing hearts 
of fathers and mothers who have toiled 
and wept and prayed for their sons and 
daughters; Oh, the pity and the shame and 
the torture of soul which sin brings to the 
man who has not dug deep and laid his 
faith on the Rock! 

Come, then; let you and I be sure of 
our work! Let us get near to Him and 
take Him to be our Foundation Stone. 
Only so may we see the work of our hands 
prosper. Only then will our temple some 
day stand complete, its towers among the 
stars, its windows all alight with the glow 
from the city of gold, its every room made 
radiant by the glory shining out from the 
throne of God ! 

Beauty in the Broken Rock 

A few years ago, when making some 
changes in our home in the country, we 
planned to lift the building a little higher 
and put under it a better wall. Quite by 
chance we discovered a quarry of excellent 
stone, half-hidden under the bank of a 
little stream which made its way down 
one side of the farm. From this we took 
many loads of rock, separating the stone 
from the great ledge with wedges and 
other tools we had made for the purpose. 
Day after day we worked there in the 
19 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

shadows of the trees bending over the 
stream, shaping the blocks for their place 
in the wall. 

When at last they were all ready to 
be laid up as a new foundation to the old 
home, the man who had come to do the 
work stood for some time gazing down at 
the pieces; then he said: 

''Why did you not give these stones a 
rock face? They are too fine to be laid 
this way ! They would look so much better 
the other way!" 

''A rock-face?" I asked, wonderingly. 
''I do not know just what you mean. Tell 
me about it." 

The rocks looked very beautiful to me. 
Nature, with her mysterious dyes, had 
given them a lovely deep-blue color. They 
were firm and free from flaws — the finest 
stones I had ever seen. And then, too, I 
had spent so many days carving them out 
for the wall, making their edges straight 
and true! How could anything of beauty 
be given to them? For a moment it hurt 
my pride a bit that the workman should 
suggest such a thing. 

For answer he lifted his hammer and 
gave one of the stones a sharp rap. Away 
flew a great flake from the edge of my 
handsome stone! Surely it had been 
ruined! I could scarce keep back a cry of 
sorrow at the work which had been 
wrought. Another blow, and still another, 
20 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

struck with pitiless force. But the hammer 
in the hands of this master had changed 
the rock I had thought so perfect into a 
thing of undreamed-of beauty. No longer 
dull and plain as it had been when it left 
my untrained hands, a glory was revealed 
in the block that brought from my lips 
an exclamation of glad surprise. 

'*I would never have imagined it!'* 

^'That is what I mean by a rock-face/' 
the artist of the heavy hammer said . ' ' Now 
choose.'' 

But there was no choice, now that I 
had seen what could be done so quickly. 

'*Go on," I said, ''make them all like 
this!" 

Broken, that it might have more of 
beauty! 

The Stroke that Makes Beautiful 

Life has been running on in a quiet 
way for, lo! these many years. Little of 
storm has come to bring the shadows. 
Far more of joy than of pain has been our 
lot. To us it seems like a goodly life; we 
would ask for nothing better. So calm, so 
peaceful, so full of what we deemed most 
sacred service! 

Then all at once comes the sharp 

thrust of pain. The sunshine flees away. 

The tempest breaks around our souls in 

fury. We cry to God to pity and stay His 

21 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

hand. How can we live ! The very depths 
of our lives are stirred! What does it all 
mean? The only answer which comes to 
us is this: 

'*What I do thou knowest not now; 
but thou shalt know hereafter!" 

Hereafter! Ah, hereafter we see that 
this was the stroke of the hammer which 
gave the stone more of loveliness! Soon 
the work was done and the experience 
which seemed at the time so bitter, so hard 
to bear, had changed the rough and im- 
perfect stone into a block full of symmetry 
and grace. Now, indeed, it was better 
fitted for its place in the temple we were 
building. Looking back upon it, we would 
not have it otherwise. 

Strength to Endure 

Not long ago it was my fortune to be 
in the home of a dear friend whose hus- 
band had been suddenly snatched from her 
embrace. Always a frail little body, we all 
wondered if she could bear up against this 
great sorrow. Would it not crush her to 
the earth? Far in the deep watches of that 
first awful night, when her loved one lay 
in the peace of death, I could hear this 
child of God, as I vainly tried to sleep, re- 
peating sweet passages from the Word — 
songs of comfort and precious promises for 
the hour of trouble. Then would come 
22 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

words of her own, low, calm, strong, and 
full of hope and trust in the Father who 
doeth all things well. She fail? Her faith 
was grounded on the Rock! In the morn- 
ing I spoke of having caught something of 
the midnight talk with Jesus. 

'^Yes," came the quiet answer, ''I 
would die if I did not have God's Book — 
and God!" 

Safe in such hiding, the smiting could 
only bring more of beauty! 

From the heart of the forest, one who 
is skilled in the use of tools takes the tree 
which has been riven by the lightning 
stroke and carves from it a panel of won- 
drous beauty for the palace of some king. 
Wonderful, we say; and so it is. Far more 
so when, by means of the experiences 
which come to those who trust Him, God 
works out this *'far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory'' for the temple of 
the King of kings ! 

Give me this beauty, oh, my Father! 
Riven by the thunderbolt of sin, I lie at 
Thy feet! Nothing of beauty is left in me! 
All is gone! Once my head was lifted 
up on high, '* above mine enemies round 
about me!" My face was turned toward 
Thee! It seemed as if I might bear some 
fruit for Thee! Then came sin and struck 
me down! Now take me. Thou Mighty 
One, take me, and out of my poverty make 
me rich in Thee! Bring back the peace 
23 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

which alone can satisfy! It may be Thou 
must strike me still harder blows; I know 
not! Let them come, if so I may be saved 
to Thee! The fire will not be too hot, if 
Thou dost temper it! I can still look up 
into Thy face and say, ''Thy will be done!'* 
if Thy hand still holds my own! For I do 
long for the pure, the holy life; and I know 
that Thou, and Thou alone, canst give it 
me! 

The Posts of the House 

More than a hundred and fifty years ago 
the little country of Holland was attacked 
by an enemy which for a time caused it 
more apprehension than any foe outside. 
The nation could defend itself fairly well 
against the encroachments of foreign in- 
vaders. Holland knew how to fight with 
swords and guns; but this was an enemy 
of another sort. It attacked the dykes 
which constituted the chief defense of the 
Netherlands against the sea. It came 
silently, silently it did its work; but when 
that work was done, the great piles which 
had been driven down as barriers against 
the ocean were crumbled and destroyed 
forever. 

In alarm the wise men came together 

to study ways and means for waging war 

against this terrible foe. The government 

appointed a commission to investigate 

24 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

causes and devise remedies. Other nations 
joined in the search, but from that day 
down to a comparatively recent time all 
inquiries seemed wholly useless. The 
teredo kept on sinking ships, tearing down 
barriers erected for national defense, and 
doing untold damage to the timber of the 
world. It is estimated by thoughtful men 
that not less than eight billion dollars' 
worth of timber is destroyed every year 
by this little worm-Hke enemy, no larger 
than a thread of cotton. Once the teredo 
attacks a piece of timber, its fate is sealed 
in a year or two, at the longest. Until very 
lately it has resisted every attempt to ef- 
fectually combat it, baffling the inventive 
genius of all nations. 

The Nation's Pillars 

Look for the cause of the downfall of 
almost any of the nations which once 
flourished on the earth and you will find it 
in the heart of its men. Men became cor- 
rupt and the nation went down; for men 
are the pillar upon which the nation rests. 

In the early days of our country, after 
the houses of logs gave way to better build- 
ings, at every corner, and often in the 
spaces between, large square posts were set 
up and the beams of the house framed se- 
curely into them. Many of these old houses 
25 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

may still be seen on the farms of this coun- 
try. Braces, often of oak, gave added 
strength to the already sturdy building. 
And these houses held fast against every 
shock. Winds swept about them with hur- 
ricane force, and they did not tremble. 
Thousands of houses built at a later date 
without these posts have gone down in the 
storms which have surged about them. 
Their builders were in too much of a hurry. 
The times demand cheaper work. Security 
is giving way to the waste of competition. 

Not far from my own home, a little 
while ago, a great building was laid low 
in a storm — not a board left in its place. 
The posts were not secure. Not a single 
brace in the whole building! 

In our day there are those who think 
they see indications that the Nation we 
love so well is tottering to its fall. God 
grant that they may prove to be false 
prophets! But if that day ever does come, 
it will be because of the weakness and the 
sin of those who have been set to be the 
pillars of the land. Love of gold, selfish- 
ness, greed of power — these are the things 
that take the very heart-life out of men 
and leave them like the timber which has 
had its strength sapped by the teredo! 
Digging down through all the so-called 
causes, we shall come at last to the one 
thing which includes them all — sin. It is 
sin in the heart that works the ruin. 
26 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Strengthening the Posts 

In the course of their studies of dif- 
ferent methods of preserving timbers from 
the attacks of the teredo, men long ago 
found that if they wrapped them round 
about with broad sheets of metal, nailed 
with heavy spikes, these would for a time 
resist the insidious foe ; but it was for only 
a little while: soon the metal would give 
way to the chemical action of the water 
and the timber would again be exposed 
to the assaults of the dreaded assailant. 

But now a way has been found which 
seems to bid fair to be really effective. It 
is by applying to the timber as it stands 
in the water that mysterious agent, elec- 
tricity. That kills the teredo the moment 
it touches it. 

Was it so that the posts of the house 
they were building to the name of Jehovah 
might be safe from the encroachments of 
such enemies as the teredo that the men 
of Tyre overlaid the posts of the temple 
with purest gold? Or was it that they 
might be more beautiful? Surely, both 
these purposes were accomplished. How 
those timbers must have glinted in the soft 
sunshine of the Holy Land when the sun- 
light fell upon them! The cedar of Leba- 
non, folded round about with the gold of 
Parvaim! No wonder the temple stood 
through so many ages ! Only when sin had 
27 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

eaten out the heart of God's people, and 
they went away into captivity, did their 
glorious house of worship fall at the hands 
of those who hated God. 

Even gold fails. The only thing which 
saves our costly timbers is the current of 
electricity shot through them. In the 
spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ lies the 
safety of our Nation! We may wrap it 
about with the costliest treasures of gold 
and precious things : they will fail ! Every 
device of the human heart will come to 
naught when measured with the awful 
demon of sin! Jesus alone can save! 
''There is none other name under heaven 
given among men, whereby we must be 
saved!" But the name of Jesus can save! 

Would we have the house we are build- 
ing stand the storms of time and meet the 
ravages of every foe that may come 
against it? Let the Spirit have sway in the 
soul! The sting of sin is death. Every- 
where we must meet it. In the home we 
have a flower so fair! How we love the 
child of our heart, the boy given us by 
God Himself! We bear him in our arms 
through the babyhood days. We croon to 
him our sweetest songs. In the twilight 
hour we hush him to sleep with our softest 
lullaby. On through the years we watch 
the progress of our dear one. We guard 
him as with our very life-blood. For him 
we would give life itself. We strive to 
28 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

shelter him from every stain of sin. And 
yet, in the day we think not the awful 
work is done! Sin has touched the soul 
and the strong, pure Hfe is withered and 
blasted ! 

But, thanks be to God, there is a remedy 
for sin! The blood of Jesus Christ cleans- 
eth from all sin ! Let the brooks whisper it 
on their way to the sea! Let the flowers 
breathe it, looking up into the face of God! 
Rivers, mountains, and highest peaks of 
earth fling the glad word to the world's 
remotest bound! 

JESUS SAVES 

We have heard a joyful sound, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves ! 
Spread the tidings all around, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves ! 
Bear the news to ev'ry land, climb the steeps and 

cross the waves, 
Earth shall keep her jubilee, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves ! 

Waft it on the rolling tide, Jesus saves, Jesus saves! 
Tell to sinners far and wide, Jesus saves, Jesus saves! 
Sing, ye islands of the sea, echo back ye ocean caves, 
Earth shall keep her jubilee, Jesus saves, Jesus 
saves ! 

Sing above the battle's strife, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves I 
By His death and endless life, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves ! 
Sing it softly thro' the gloom, when the heart for 

mercy craves; 
Sing in triumph o'er the tomb, Jesus saves, Jesus 

saves! 

29 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Give the winds a mighty voice, Jesus saves, Jesus 
saves ! 

Let the nations now rejoice, Jesus saves, Jesus 
saves ! 

Shout salvation full and free, highest hills and deep- 
est caves, 

This our song of victory, Jesus saves, Jesus saves! 

The Fragrance of the Cedar 

How fragrant is the wood of the cedar 
tree! Just to hold a piece of it in the hand 
is enough to bring memories of the far-off 
forest and to kindle in the soul a longing 
to be once more near to Nature's heart, 
while to plunge the face in a chest made of 
this sweet-smelling timber is one of the 
delights of life, never to be forgotten. Per- 
fume more delicate than any man can dis- 
till! Fragrance richer than that wafted 
from Araby's plains! 

With what emotions of joy must the 
people of Israel have approached the 
house of God when at last it stood com- 
plete! The sacred historian tells us that 
Solomon ** built the walls of the house 
within of boards of cedar, both the floor 
and the walls of the ceiling.'* While still 
afar off, the delicious perfume from the 
cedars of Lebanon must have drifted out 
to meet the way-worn pilgrims pressing 
toward the courts of the Lord. Beautiful, 
too, must have been the appearance pre- 
sented by those boards, carved as they 
were with **knops and open flowers/' in the 
30 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

highest art of the times. No wonder the 
poets of the nation spoke over and over 
again of the cedar as the emblem of pros- 
perity, strength, and durability. Perhaps 
a similar sense of admiration, mingled with 
veneration, reveals itself in the sentiment 
expressed by the people of India when 
they speak of the Himalayan cedar as 
''the divine tree.'' 

Can we not trace a resemblance be- 
tween the rich and costly cedar of which 
the walls of God's temple were built and 
the character of the Christian? Do we 
not know men and women whose very 
presence brings a sense of peace and joy 
to our hearts? We love to be near them. 
Just to look into their faces is to gain 
something of strength and to inspire us 
with new ideals of purity. Many a time 
have we been in a room where joy was 
well-nigh approaching the border line of 
good propriety. Perhaps it all started in a 
remark in itself perfectly innocent, but 
somehow it proved to be the thin edge of 
the wedge which cleaved the way to some- 
thing worse. Soon the worse passed on to 
the superlative degree. Restraint gave 
way, and the flood of jest and laughter and 
expression swept over the company. 

Softly the door opened just then, and 

a woman with a face fresh from the secret 

room of God came over the threshold. An 

instant hush fell. Why? Heaven was in 

31 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

the woman's face. Who could speak a 
rude word in her presence? Who could 
even think an evil thought as long as she 
was there? The Divine Artist had been 
working on that face. Not all at once had 
the change come. It takes two thousand 
years to bring the giant cedar to its ma- 
turity. Storm and sunshine, tempest and 
dewdrop, through the years, but now, at 
last, the full-grown cedar. So God's love 
in the heart, working day by day, love 
shown sometimes in the storm and some- 
times in the tender touch of joy, sometimes 
in the smile and sometimes in the whirl- 
wind of sorrow, works out in the face the 
glory which stills the wild laugh of sin 
and sets a seal on the lip of passion ! 

Here is a company of men who once 
wore the insignia of power and authority 
in the War of the Crimea. They are hold- 
ing a meeting in memory of the old days. 
In a lull of the conversation, one of the 
number proposes that each shall write 
secretly on a piece of paper the name of 
the one person who is, in his opinion, en- 
titled to the most of glory for work done 
in the campaign on the Peninsula. Why 
is it that, when the ballots have been 
gathered and the decision recorded, every 
soldier has written the name of Florence 
Nightingale? Why was it that the wounded 
soldier, borne from the field of Balaklava, 
who had felt the touch of this sweet-faced 
32 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

woman on his hot brow, should afterward 
say, ^*We kissed the very shadow of Flor- 
ence Nightingale as it fell across our beds, 
and lay our heads on the pillow again, 
satisfied?'* Why, save that from her 
radiated a fragrance far exceeding the per- 
fume of the cedars of Lebanon? 

But do we say, that was a time 6f war; 
it did not mean so much to be great then? 

The streets are wind-swept and cheer- 
less. On the corner stands a lad, shiver- 
ing in the cold. **Are you cold, my boy?'* 
asks a lady, pausing long enough to take 
the little fellow by the hand. ** Please, 
ma'am, I was before you took hold of my 
hand!"^ 

I think the angels took note of that act, 
done out of kindness, just as surely as they 
ever did of the bravest deed ever done on 
the field of battle. Both lifted the shadow 
from a life that was feeling its way on 
through the dark, because both were in- 
spired of God. 

"Within" 

It was within that the builders of old 
laid the panels of cedar for the strength 
and adornment of God's temple. It must 
be in the heart that we have the touch of 
the divine, if we would by our daily walk 
and conversation carry joy and sunshine 
out into the world about us. 

There are twenty-five different woods 
3 33 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

which are sold under the name of cedar. 
Some of these closely resemble the more 
costly wood. They take quite the sam.e 
polish. Only the eye of the expert can 
detect the deception. But always there 
will be one point of distinction — the fra- 
grance is missing from the imitation. The 
day will come when the fraud is discovered. 
For a little while a man may pass for a 
child of God. He may wear the badge of 
the King's ser\dce. His lips may sing 
the songs of the Kingdom. We must not 
speak the word of judgment here. We may 
not know what is in the heart; God alone 
knows that: but we do know that there 
does come a time with men, sometimes, 
when the fire reveals the work — of what 
sort it is. How quickly the flames lick up 
the house that is built upon the stubble! 
Soon the false vanishes under the touch 
of the sharp chisel of God's truth. It is 
the true that stands. Nothing else will. 

"From Father's Door" 

*^I never shall forget the sunsets I used 
to see from father's door! They were so 
beautiful! How many, many times I have 
stood in the doorway and looked away be- 
yond the hills when the sun was just sink- 
ing in the west! The skies were fairly 
glorious with gray and pink and purple and 
gold! And the light fell so softly on the 
34 



II 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

woods beyond the nine-acre lot! Often 
the words of the Book came to me, *Lift 
up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted 
up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of 
glory shall come in!' It sometimes seemed 
to me I could almost see the gates of Para- 
dise!" 

From father's door! Only a humble 
farmer's home, away on the hills; but the 
beauty of the sunsets had left their radi- 
ance in the soul of the woman who spent 
her girlhood days there. Blessed are all 
who have the gallery of their hearts hung 
with scenes such as that! They make all 
life sweeter and grander. The wreck of 
time may sweep many things away; last 
of all to go will be the splendor of the sun- 
sets from father's door! 

Have you ever stopped to think what 
an important part doors bear in the con- 
struction of buildings everywhere? It 
sometimes seems as if more attention is 
paid to the door of a house than to almost 
any other part. The house itself may be 
very commonplace and unpretentious, but 
the door fronting on the street will be 
fairly extravagant. As you pass up and 
down life's highway, take time to study 
the doors you see. And the statelier the 
building, the more costly and magnificent 
the door. All possible of artistic skill is 
laid out upon it. 

Linger a moment over the words with 
35 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

which the author of the Book of Kings de- 
scribes the doors of the house of God as 
built by David's son: 

''So also he made for the door of the 
temple posts of olive tree; a fourth part 
of the wall. 

''And the two doors were of fir tree; 
the two leaves of the one door were folding 
and the two leaves of the other door were 
folding. 

"And he car\'ed thereon cherubim and 
palm trees and open flowers and covered 
them with gold fitted upon the carv^ed 
work." 

Without doubt the writer of the 
Twenty-fourth Psalm had in mind ''the 
entrance of the ark, with the attending 
procession," when he said: 

''Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and 
be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and 
the King of glory shall come in!" 

Doorways of the Life 

Are they beautiful, so that all who 
enter through them shall do it with bound- 
ing heart and joyous step, thinking of the 
happiness awaiting within in your pres- 
ence? And when the way-weary traveler 
pauses on the threshold to look once more 
out into the world, will he catch a glimpse 
from your door of the greater glor>^ of 
the Father's house? This ought to be 
36 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

true of every child of God. The face 
should be so calm, so frank, and so open, 
the presence so pure and so holy, that 
they will bring peace to every tired, 
tempest-tossed man and woman who seeks 
a haven. Why not? It seems to me im- 
possible that one in whose soul the Spirit 
really dwells should be cold and unfor- 
bearing and unlovely. Well may we 
doubt the heart-life of one who is con- 
stantly harsh, critical, and fault-finding. 
Shadows do come over the pathway of us 
all oftener than we wish, so that we feel 
that we must go away alone and sit in 
God's presence for a little while. Then 
for the moment our smiles may shine 
through the mist of tears; but God gives 
us the grace to smile! Then the moments 
with Him only make the heart more gentle 
when the trysting is over, and the love- 
light in the eyes more tender toward the 
world. 

No one of us can live so far apart from 
our fellows that some time a lonely way- 
farer will not find his way to our door. 

Away up among the hills of my native 
State, I rode far one day, a few years ago, 
in search of a man with whom I had busi- 
ness. I had a bit of trouble to find the 
way to his home, for many seemed not 
even to know his name; and when, at 
last, I was on the right road, I found that 
it was little more than a byway. The 
37 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

track grew more and more dim, finally 
losing itself in a grass-grown path. The 
house to which I came, after a long time 
of wandering, stood far back in the shadow 
of many tall trees, with hedges overgrown 
and unkept, adding their mite to the lone- 
liness. And the man himself was like the 
house, cold, stern, and forbidding. He 
had grown sick of the world and crept 
away, thinking to be alone from all men; 
but this he could not do. As long as he 
lives in the world, the world will find its 
way to his door. 

Once again I climbed the path up a 
steep and trying way with a dear friend, 
hoping that when we reached the summit 
we might gain a pleasant view of the city 
below. When well up the side of the 
mountain we came to a massive gate, 
with bars of steel, fast-closed against us, 
and lines of iron fence running on either 
side, cutting oflf all further progress. 

Have you not come to lives like this? 
With joyful anticipation you have sought 
them, only to be confronted by a shut 
door, so you go away sore in spirit and 
disappointed. 

Joy of the Open Heart 

But oh, the joy of the open heart! 
What cheer it brings you! 

A writer tells the following story oi the 
organist of a little country church: **He 
38 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

was playing a voluntary lor the afternoon 
service. The day was hot, the air was 
sleepy, the congregation was small. There 
was nothing at hand to inspire anybody. 
At that moment the preacher opened the 
vestry door and passed into the little pul- 
pit. He was a young man of intense ear- 
nestness. He came into the church from an 
atmosphere of prayer, and brought the 
atmosphere with him. There was a look 
as of other worlds on his grave, uplifted 
face as he passed into the pulpit. The 
look of the preacher thrilled the organist. 
The music under his fingers grew fuller; 
the little building seemed to be charged 
with a new atmosphere. And all this was 
wrought by the look on the preacher's 
face. The preacher himself was uncon- 
scious of it, but by his mere countenance 
he was touching with spiritual and endur- 
ing forces those who looked on him." 

How you would like to look into the 
face of one who had the power to help you 
like that! The way has been long and 
lonely. You have grown sick of the clang 
and clangor of the world. '^Give me your 
best!" ring out the notes of the sharp, in- 
cessant bells of everyday life. ''Burn 
your heart out for a few moments of pleas- 
ure! Starve your soul for gold! Listen, 
listen to me!" How the call has deafened 
you! No time for anything good, not 
even a moment for God and the Word! 
39 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Your very soul is crying out for some 
calm heart to rest against for a little while. 

You have pulled away from the thorn- 
bush of the world, leaving shreds of your 
garments on the pitiless thing and staining 
its leaves with your blood; so much does 
it cost to be free from the bondage of 
earth! And all breathless you come to the 
doorway of this friend of God and friend 
of your heart. Will the door be shut and 
barred against you? Ah! well you know 
how glad a welcome is in store for you! 
In his sacred presence you linger till the 
noise in your soul is hushed and you are 
ready to go back into the world, strong 
once more for life's battle! For you have 
looked beyond the battlements of time 
and caught a glimpse of the glory shining 
from the hills of God! 

Then you long to make your own life 
a shelter for other tired and sin-sick pil- 
grims on life's road. How shall you do it? 
Build a beautiful doorway to the temple 
of your life! Take far looks from the 
doorstep of the Father's house! Drink in 
its sunsets! Weave golden threads of love 
and kindness into the cord with which you 
draw men to you ! Drop the curtain shut- 
ting out pride and passion ! Keep the door 
of your heart open to every dust-covered 
traveler who feels his way to youi: door 
through the darkness and the storm ! Love 
everybody! Live close to some one, even 
40 



T 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

if it be but a little child! Best of all, give 
the Spirit right of way to your heart. He 
will bring you grace for your own strength- 
ening and consolation for all who come 
across the desert of life to you! 

*^The roseate hues of early dawn, 

The brightness of the day, 
The crimson of the sunset sky. 

How fast they fade away! 
O for the pearly gates of heaven, 

O for the golden floor; 
O for the Sun of righteousness 

That setteth nevermore! 

"The highest hopes we cherish here. 

How fast they tire and faint; 
How many a spot defiles the robe 

That wraps an earthly saint! 
O for a heart that never sins, 

O for a soul wash'd white, 
O for a voice to praise our King, 

Nor weary day or night ! 

"Here faith is ours, and heavenly hope, 
And grace to lead us higher; 
But there are perfectness and peace 

Beyond our best desire. 
O, by Thy love and anguish, Lord, 

And by Thy life laid down, 
Grant that we fall not from Thy grace. 
Nor cast away our crown!" 

— C. F, Alexander, 

The Holy of Holies 

The oil will grow low in the lamp that 
is lighted; the carbon will burn itself out 
in the fierce blaze of the electric current; 
the steel of the Damascus blade one day 
loses its edge with use; our birds of flight 
41 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

fly so far with their messages of hope and 
love and good cheer that their wings are 
tired and droop wearily. Then we long 
for a resting-place. 

Beyond the wall of cedar beams resting 
on stone which surrounded the temple of 
old, beyond the court of the priests, beyond 
the court of the Lord's house, beyond the 
holy place, in the dim Hght of the inner 
shrine, was the Holy of Holies. As di- 
rected of God, we are told that Solomon 
"for the entering of the oracle made doors 
of olive tree ; the lintel and side posts were 
a fifth part of the wall. The two doors 
also were of olive tree; and he carved 
upon them car\dngs of cherubim and palm 
trees and open flowers, and overlaid them 
with gold, and spread gold upon the cheru- 
bims, and upon the palm trees." Besides 
the doors, the narrative continues, a beau- 
tiful curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet, 
worked on a background of purest white 
linen, also as directed by Jehovah, fell 
over the opening. Nor was this enough. 
Across the doorways heavy chains of gold 
swung, to bar the way to any who might 
venture near. 

Here in the twilight the sacred ark, 
sheltered by the massive cherubim, had its 
place. None might enter here, save the 
high priest, and he but once a year, to per- 
form the duties of his sacred office. Only 
through a thickly-screened lattice did the 
42 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

light fall into the mystic enclosure. With 
what feelings of awe must the divinely- 
appointed representative of the people 
have stepped within this Holy of Holies! 
Truly, would he not wish to go with un- 
shod feet and bowed head! For here, as 
nowhere else in all the temple, he would 
come face to face with Jehovah. 

Unless it have its Holy of Holies, the 
temple of your life and mine is not com- 
plete. We need it so much! Well for us 
if, when sore pressed by the things of time 
and sense, we may hear the voice calling 
us to communion apart from the world, 
heart to heart with God! Did not our 
Elder Brother have need of such fellow- 
ship with the Father while here among 
men? We love to think of Him rising up 
a long time before the stars began to grow 
dim in the morning to climb the mountain 
heights in search of some place where He 
could lie for a little while on the bosom of 
the Father. How we would like to know 
more about those hours spent in prayer! 
We may not touch even the fringe of a 
secret so sacred as this; but I think the 
Father surely gave rest and peace to our 
Lord, so that He might go back into the 
world with its pain and its sin and its 
awful misunderstanding to meet it all 
bravely and well; for that is what He 
gives you and me when we enter with Him 
into the Holy of Holies. 
43 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

I know we are sometimes not willing 
to obey the blessed summons when it 
comes. Have I not stood out against Him 
myself? ''I can not come now!" I said; 
''I am too busy!" And He said, ''But you 
are tired; the sands in the glass are well- 
nigh run out! Do you not even now see 
the bottom of the cup which is at your 
lips? Listen, I beseech you! Come unto 
Me and rest!" Still the world lures me. 
My toys charm me so! And I persist: 
"If time is short, so much the more reason 
why I should hurry on! There is so much 
to do! I have no time to lose!" ''AH 
time is Mine!" comes back the solemn 
warning. "What have you, My child? 
The gold and the silver and the cattle on 
the hills are Mine. You call them yours, 
but you know, when you stop to think, 
that it is not so! In a Uttle while you will 
leave these hills, with their trees, their 
flowers, and their grassy banks! Soon for 
you the music of the brooks will have 
rippled its last sweet song in your ears! 
I know your frame, how frail it is! I need 
you for better and grander service, if you 
will only come and be fitted for it! I have 
something I would tell you here in the 
secret place! Come!" 

Is the tone less gentle now? So it 

seemed to me a little while ago when His 

call came to me. I did not know how to 

wait for Him to speak to me as He would, 

44 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

And His hand was suddenly upon me ! For 
a time it seemed so heavy! It is so hard 
to be still when the heart is filled with the 
beauties of this life! Before I fully yielded, 
my feet were far down the Valley of the 
Shadow! Deep into the waters He led 
me! Life's lights began to grow dim, and 
a strange weakness came over me! I 
tightened my clasp on the hand of the 
dear one who had walked with me so far 
on the way, but somehow it seemed as if 
His touch were stronger and I must go and 
leave my loved one! How we do dread to 
let them go! But at last I was ready to 
listen! I believe God indeed did have 
something for me to do, for the cup passed 
from my lips! The tide of life surged back, 
and I said in my heart of hearts, '*My 
times are indeed in Thy hands, O God! 
Take me and do with me as seemeth best 
to Thee!" So much had it taken to call 
me from my playthings to sit at His feet! 
He knew it was best for me, so He said, 
''You must!'' and now I know it was 
best, too! 

Compensations 

We come back from our trysting with 
God with new and richer views of life. 

Were you ever so wayward when a 
child that Mother said, ''My little one will 
need to go away in the other room for a 
45 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

while and think this over alone?'* You 
knew all about that other room. It was 
dark in there — dark and so still! No soft 
cheek to touch when you put out your 
hand! No sweet voice to answer when 
you called through the shadows! At first 
your very soul rebelled against that still 
other room; and when at last mother let 
go your hand and the door was shut be- 
tween you and her dear face, you broke 
into a storm of passion! But the tempest 
sobbed itself away and you were penitent! 
Out of the other room you came with 
face shining as bright as the fairest sun- 
beam! Your soul was at peace! The 
battle was fought and the victory was 
yours! 

Between Mother's other room and 
God's there is this difference: In the one 
you are alone; in the other, He is with 
you! Never alone does He send His child 
away into the shadows! In the secret 
place you never put out your hand in 
vain ; His hand meets yours ! Your faintest 
whisper brings from Him an answer! 
Blessed gifts of the watch with Him! Like 
beautiful beads, you love now to count the 
treasures He gives you as you sit face to 
face with Him! Oil for the empty lamp; 
crystal-pure water for the fountain dried 
up by the hot sun; life and strength for 
the weakness you had known; a new 
vision in the place of the ideal which had 
46 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

grown so dim! Precious gifts! Bountiful 
Giver! Who would not hear and heed His 
call to such an hour of trysting ! 

The Way In 

On, then, through all that may lie be- 
tween me and God, let me hasten! With 
trembling, eager hands let me draw aside 
the curtains of blue and purple and crim- 
son! With joy let me loosen the chains of 
gold which bar my way! Wide would I 
swing the doors, for my soul fainteth to 
be in the presence of my Father! Holding 
fast His Book, let me by faith unclasp the 
casket which holds my treasure! Then 
let me on my bended knees lie with heart 
and soul wide open to take His message to 
me! 

And let me be sure that after I have re- 
ceived what seems to me now to be the 
very best my Father has for me, He has 
something richer, sweeter, grander in store 
for me by-and-by. To-day I am like the 
newly-fledged birdling, fluttering over the 
edge of the nest. It seems to me a won- 
derful thing that I should be able to spread 
my half-bare wings and sail out and down 
to the ground. A little while and this will 
not satisfy me; I shall want to soar away 
into the very heart of the sun! He knows 
it, for did He not place the longing in my 
soul? And He will make me strong for 
47 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

the higher flight! His best to-day will be 
better to-morrow; and this will be so for 
ever and ever! 

Windows of the Soul 

How beautiful are the windows of our 
great mercantile houses! It is a joy simply 
to walk along the street and look at the 
lovely things displayed there. Every busi- 
ness house, aware of the worth of this 
method of attracting the public attention, 
pays great attention to the arrangement 
of its goods in the windows fronting on the 
street. Men are employed whose sole oc- 
cupation it is to arrange the choicest and 
most costly articles sold over the counters 
within so that they shall appeal to the 
eyes of those who pass by. Many of these 
houses give almost the entire front portion 
of the lower story, and perhaps a number 
higher up, to the exhibition of samples of 
the goods to be found inside. 

Beautiful as are these store fronts, a 
candle placed in the window of a humble 
cottage far out in the country may have 
greater power to draw back to his home 
one who has wandered far. Across seas, 
over mountains and prairies, the shine of 
that one flickering candle reaches, and it 
reaches to save! 

It was God's thought which placed a 
window in the ship which carried Noah 
48 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

and his loved ones safely through storm 
and darkness to the mount of the Wilder- 
ness. He was careful even to name the 
size of the opening — ''in a cubit shalt 
thou finish it above/' And it was one of 
God's poor, timid little creatures, tired 
and longing for home, that first found its 
way to that casement. 

''Noah opened the window of the ark 
which he had made: 

"And he sent forth a raven, which 
went forth to and fro, until the waters 
were dried up from off the earth. 

"Also he sent forth a dove from him, 
to see if the waters were abated from off 
the face of the ground: 

"But the dove found no rest for the 
sole of her foot, and she returned unto 
him into the ark . . . then he put 
forth his hand, and took her, and pulled 
her in unto him into the ark/' 

Poor, tired dove! Stronger of wing, 
the raven could sustain itself longer in 
flight, so it never came back; but the 
dove, with the instinct given it by Him 
who created it, found its way once more 
to the drifting ark. Did Noah hear the 
tapping of its beak at the window, or the 
beating of its weary wing at the lattice, 
and reach out to take the little bird of 
the wildly-beating heart in out of the 
storm? God bless the windows, still open 
to the weary doves ever flying across the 

4 49 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

floods ot time! Why should we not make 
them the symbol of hope and good cheer 
for all who have been caught out in the 
night and the tempest? Very beautifully 
does Isaiah, in his vision of the hosts turn- 
ing to the brightness of Christ's rising, 
speak of them as ''doves flying to their 
windows." So important did it seem to 
Jehovah that there should be a window 
in the ark, that He gave very minute di- 
rections as to its building; nor did He for- 
get to include in His instructions for the 
construction of the temple, details for all 
necessary windows. Ever since, wherever 
men have built a house of any kind, the 
window has been a prominent feature in 
the plan. No matter how humble or how 
great it may be, somewhere it has had a 
place for the light to shine in. 

To shine in? Aye, and to shine out 
as well ! 

Were you ever far out on the prairie, 
away from home and loved ones, with night 
coming on? Many a mile have you ridden. 
The dust of the road is thick upon your 
garments. You are so tired! Still no 
sign of a place of refuge! Then suddenly, 
away across the plain, the light from some 
farmer's house catches your eye. How your 
heart leaps for joy! The light sf)eaks to 
you of rest and shelter, food and a place 
to lay your head for the night, and you 
press on! 

50 



II 



n 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Doves to their Windows! 

Oh, the homesick souls everywhere, look- 
ing for the light in the window! Oh, the 
hearts that have been kept true by the 
beams of light streaming out! 

'*Come on, won't you, and have a 
game with us?'' 

'* Thank you, but I never learned!" 

A laugh and a sneer, but the young 
man's face showed not a flush. He was 
too brave for that. A little later: 

'*Have a drink with us! Surely you 
won't refuse that!" 

''You will not let it make any difference 
with your feeling toward me, I am sure, 
but you must excuse me! I never drink!" 

The room grows more and more up- 
roarious. The glass goes round. Jest and 
story and song make the night hideous. 
Still the young man sits unmoved. It 
seemed as if he did not hear anything of 
what was going on about him. The scratch- 
ing of his pen was all the sound in the 
world to him. It was the best he could do — 
there was no place for him to sit and to 
write save in the midst of the revelry; 
but what does that matter to him? His 
soul is far away with the dear one to whom 
he is writing! 

When at last the fire has burned itself 
out and the room is still, the man behind 
the bar slips out of his place and comes 
51 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

over to sit opposite the silent writer. The 
young man sees him and looks up long 
enough to smile into the wistful face which 
is bent upon him. In spite of the years of 
evil which have been chiseling their lines 
on the features of the man, it is a kindly 
face. 

''Are you too busy to answer me one 
question?'' The face bends closer and the 
look is more wistful. 

''Surely not. A hundred of them, if 
you will!'* 

"It's just this: Why do n't you go in 
with the rest of them? You never do?" 

"Oh, I could n't, Joe! I do not want to 
doit!" 

"I know; but why? I could see by 
your face that you are not that kind. But 
why is it?" 

The light in the eyes of the young man 
grows moist, and he is not ashamed of it. 
Neither does the man opposite him love 
him the less for it. 

"I'll tell you, Joe. Away back East 
there's a dear, good mother thinking of 
me! She tells me I am always in her heart, 
and I believe it. I 've been writing to her 
to-night! Seemed to me, as I wrote, I could 
see her sweet face bending over me, and I 
could almost hear her voice! Joe, it would 
kill mother if I should join with the 
others in these things! She loves me so!" 

The lovelight shining out of the soul's 
52 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

window across the years and holding him 
true — true to mother, true to himself, 
true to God ! 

Sermons in Glass 

Very simple things were the windows 
men made at first — simply an opening in 
the wall of the house, covered, when cov- 
ered at all, with lattice- work, and later by 
a wooden slide. But dimly did light filter 
through the openings in the slats, and not 
at all when the board was drawn over the 
opening. But how beautiful and how 
costly are some of the windows of our day! 
Made only by days and days of the most 
careful and painstaking labor, and telling 
by the designs worked out upon them some 
story of love or heroism or goodness of 
heart. Before my eyes now rises one such 
window, the central figure of which is a 
cross and crown, done in the highest style 
of art. Think of the sermons such a win- 
dow must preach to those who sit in the 
pews below from Sabbath to Sabbath and 
feast their eyes upon its beauties! 

On the battle-ground of Fort Donelson, 
in the Southland, there stands a beautiful 
little church, erected since the war. Con- 
federate and Federal soldier alike had con- 
tributed to its building, so that it was 
dedicated without debt. On the day of the 
dedication, sixty veterans, some of whom 
S3 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

had fought on the side of the North and 
some of whom had worn the gray, sat to- 
gether in a body, every passion of war 
stilled in their hearts, only the great pas- 
sion of the Cross burning in their souls! 
The preacher himself had borne the arms 
of the lost cause. 

But one of the most striking things 
about that little church was a memorial 
window which had been placed there by the 
gifts of the reunited people. Two figures 
appeared on the glass: the one a soldier 
of the Union, wearing the blue suit of the 
North; the other was clad in the sober 
gray of the South. Face to face these two 
stood, each reaching out his hand in friendly 
greeting to the other. Above them the 
flags of the two armies mingled their folds, 
a beautiful wreath of laurel in the center. 
Over all was a cross circled by a crown! 
Underneath these words appeared: 

**Fold up the banners, smelt the guns; 

Love rules — her gentler purpose runs. 
A mighty mother turns, in tears, 
The pages of her battle years, 

Lamenting all her fallen sons!" 

Think of the lessons of peace and good 
will that window has taught the people 
who have sat looking up at it! No more 
blue ! No more gray ! Only the pure white 
of the Christian faith! And that is only 
one window in a little church away in the 
54 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Southland! Everywhere there are other 
windows, some grand and costly and some 
only small and simple, but all telling some 
story that will lift the soul to better things ! 

Your Home Windows 

Set a lamp in your window, mother! 
And do not hide its rays by any curtain, 
however thin! Let its full glory shine out 
upon the traveler's way! For who knows 
who that traveler may be? He may be 
the boy you have loved all these years. 
He went away so clean and true and pure 
of heart! He thought he was strong 
enough to stand four-square against the 
pitiless storms of the world; and you, 
knowing better than he what beautiful 
and costly crafts have gone down in the 
tempest of trial, let no word of doubt slip 
from your lips, the while your heart tugged 
hard and you pressed a kiss wet with hope 
on his cheek and sent him away to try it! 
And he did try it, and was tried by it — 
tried till the stout withe was bent before 
the blast, even unto breaking! But it 
did not break! All through the years your 
boy has been held by your love; and the 
light you set in the window to-night will 
be the first thing he sees as he climbs the 
hill and looks down on the home of his 
boyhood ! 

But if it be not your boy, it surely will 
55 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

be somebody's! So send a good, broad 
ray of light down the way he will come! 
It may keep him from straying out into 
the thorn fields and losing his path ! Surely, 
somebody will see that light if it be there, 
and miss it if the window be dark! 

Costliest Windows 

Thousands of dollars are spent many 
times upon a single window. But the 
costliest window of all is the window of the 
soul! Why does the mother set the lamp 
in the window of her humble home? To 
guide her boy back to the home fireside, 
you say, and that is true; and still our 
plummet has not touched the bottom. 
Mother-love in the heart shining out in 
that kindly act proves that she has built 
into the temple of her life a good, wide 
window. Day by day, with prayers and 
with tears, she has been adding here a 
line and there a touch to give it more of 
beauty. Every sweet song she sings, every 
bit of a tear that glistens in her eye be- 
cause of love and sympathy, every kindly 
word she speaks, every loving letter she 
writes — these are all costly mosaics she is 
fitting into the window of her soul! 

And she has close by her side at every 

step of the way a Helper, the Artist of the 

heavenly face! He sees the longing of the 

mother-heart to work out the thing which 

56 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

shall last forever; and very gently He 
says: 

''My child, I know all about it! Let 
Me help you! I have been this way, and I 
know its every step!" 

Ah, yes! That is what makes the win- 
dow of the soul so very precious. Its 
crimson is the red of the choicest blood that 
ever flowed! Its purple is the royal color 
of His robe, dyed on Calvary! Its blue is 
the sky smiling back again because He 
looked up into it! Its violet is the blos- 
soming of the flower He has touched with 
His fingers! Back of all, through all, and 
in all, it is Jesus who makes the soul's 
window so beautiful ! 

And oh ! the cost of it all ! We never will 
know, we never can know, the price which 
was paid by the Christ, that He might 
take our poor lives, so marred and stained 
by sin, and make them beautiful! It costs 
us tears and prayers and patient watching; 
but it cost Jesus the Garden and Calvary! 
It costs us lowly bending at the foot of the 
cross. It cost Jesus the very cross itself! 
It costs us earnest pleading, low on our 
faces. It cost Jesus the sweat of scarlet! 
It costs us a moment of prayer here and 
there at life's little shrines. It cost Jesus 
long nights of agony such as men may 
never know, out yonder where the hills 
were chill and the loneliness enough to 
break the heart! It costs us a little bit of 
57 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

self-denial, yielding what seems so very, 
very dear to us, but which after all is but 
a speck of dust in the balance when weighed 
against the homesickness He knew for the 
vacant place up by the side of the Father 
and all the joys of Paradise! 

Costs! Ah! How little we know of 
them ! Our best drifts away like the down 
of the thistle when compared with the 
price our Master paid, and is paying, that 
you and I may rear to God's glory a temple 
which shall outshine the stars! 

And sometimes we are not willing to 
pay even the little we may for the glory 
He waits to give us. The trinkets — the 
pleasures of the passing moment, the quick- 
flitting joys this world holds out to us — 
do shine so alluringly! ''I must have 
these!" we cry, running toward them like 
children reaching after the butterfly wings 
up in the sky! ''Thou art so patient! 
Thou canst wait till we have gained these 
treasures and held them in our hands for a 
little while!'' So for the gewgaws, the 
tinsel we can wear over our shoulders but 
for a night, we put away the jewels with 
the glory everlasting! How we do miss 
it ! For the day surely comes when we will 
see the awful mistake we have made, and 
then it is so near to life's sundown! Time 
is left for only a glimpse of the life beauti- 
ful! But thanks be to His grace and ten- 
der patience, there is time for the glimpse! 
58 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

"LxK)k and Look!" 

But who knows the beauty the Christ 
can work out in the life of him who is 
willing to let Him have sway in the soul! 
Sometimes we catch faint glimpses of it 
as we look into the face of some dear saint 
who has let the Savior do as He would with 
her. So pure ! So calm ! So filled with the 
glory of the light that never was on land 
or sea! All passion melted away in the 
furnace of testing! All fear lost in a pa- 
tient yielding to the Master Will! All 
striving after self-gratification replaced by 
an earnest longing to wait and to serve as 
He served in the days of His flesh ! All of 
earth shading away into the splendor of 
the Beyond! How our souls are touched 
by such a vision! Only one other vision 
surpasses it in beauty. 

Surely you have read the story of the 
little maid of Scotland who came to ask 
that the gates of the Church be swung open 
to her. Poor, timid little lassie! She 
could not answer the hard questions the 
elders of the kirk asked her! So little did 
she know of the great doctrines of the 
Church! And some of the staid old men 
were in a little doubt whether they had 
better grant her request. But when one 
asked what made her think she was ready 
to take the great step, she smiled so sweetly 
and said: 

59 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

''Weel, sir, it was like this: Ye ken the 
Book says, 'Look unto Me and be saved;' 
and I juist looked and looked and looked, 
till Jesus seemed sae bonnie to me! Sae 
bonnie!" And the look on her face spoke 
of the peace in her soul. The doubts van- 
ished from the minds of the wise men of 
the Church. They knew the little one was 
safe in the Kingdom! 

It is looking and looking and looking 
into the face of the Christ that makes the 
life resplendent. Nothing else will. We 
tire ourselves seeking other ways of beauti- 
fying and adorning the temple we are 
building. Seems as if this way or that 
might lead us through to glory, even if it 
be not just the way He has pointed out! 
'*His way is so straight, so narrow!" we 
cry. But listen ! It leads unto life ! ''May 
we not the rather journey in the broad 
way? So many we love seem to be going 
that way ! There is more room with them ! 
So much more of comfort!'' Harken 
again! This is the way to destruction, and 
many are traveling toward that gate! Oh, 
by all we hold dear, let us hear and heed 
these solemn words! It is the face of Jesus 
which lights up the heavenly way! Come, 
let us follow Him! 



60 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Youth's Sunny Morn! 

''I had a letter from my boy the other 
day." The voice was full of pride and 
something better. "You know he is away 
at college. He spoke of having just passed 
his twenty-first birthday. That brought 
me a bit of uneasiness! How we do dis- 
like to feel that time is slipping away 
from us! But the rest of the letter more 
than made up for that. I have the letter 
here now. You may like to read it!'' 
And this is what the boy said to his father: 
"I am not troubled about my future! 
Your life, father, has been so good and so 
true that I shall take it to be my pattern! 
I have no fears in facing the battles of life!'* 
" I shall not be able to give my boy a great 
deal of money; that I would not care to 
do: but I would rather he would be able 
to say that than to thank me for giving 
him a million dollars." Can we not get 
some idea from this of the heart and home- 
life of that father and his boy? How well 
do I recall seeing them as they passed my 
home in the country. They were farmers 
owning a comfortable place. After the 
boy was old enough to manage the team, 
he sat on the seat with his father, holding 
the reins, while the older man kept close 
watch of all that passed. They were al- 
ways snuggled up together, chatting away 
like two old chums who had not met for 
61 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

many a day. Often at night they would 
sit up far into the wee small hours, talking 
over some great thing which had come up 
to interest them. Their lives were like 
the large and the small branches of a tree. 
No wonder that now, when life was widen- 
ing out for the boy, he should feel that his 
father's life was worthy to be taken as his 
own pattern! 

In the course of a public address on 
the value of a pure home-life, a man recently 
said: '*You know our home is out on the 
farm. I have four boys and two girls. I 
have always thought it worth while to live 
in the same world with them. I am in- 
terested in whatever interests them. I 
make it a point to look at things as nearly 
as I' can as they see it. That has had two 
good results. It has kept my own heart 
young and it has helped them to take right 
views of life. In our sitting-room there 
is an old table which has been in the family 
many years. How long, I do not know. 
We have that table right in the middle of 
the room, and round it every night we all 
gather, mother, the young folks and I; 
and there we have settled the difficult 
things that have come to us, and laughed 
and enjoyed whatever was worth laughing 
over. I have tried to make that little 
farmhouse and that one room the dearest 
spot to us all in all the world; and they 
are good boys and girls!" 
62 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Life's Round Table 

Would that there might be such a 
table as that in every home! Would that 
all over the land, as the shadows fall, 
father and mother and the boys and girls 
might draw up into such a circle and think 
and speak of the great things of life ! For 
those are the only things which count. 
The gaining of wealth is not worth wearing 
the soul and body out, as we sometimes 
do. A breath, and the money is gone. 
Great earthly honor is too poor a thing to 
call for the best there is in us. One turn 
of the wheel, and we go to the bottom; 
but the good life we place before those we 
love, lasts for all time! 

Darkened Windows 

As we pass along through the country, 
we now and then come to a house the 
windows of which have been covered with 
thick boards nailed up so that nothing of 
sunshine can ever get through them, and 
there is no lamp inside to shed its rays over 
the traveler's way. As I write such a 
home rises before my memory. That, too, 
was the home of a well-to-do farmer. 
The owner was very proud of it, and well 
he might be, for he had given it the very 
best effort possible. His own hands had 
hewed it from the woods. He had built 
the house. He had cleared the stumps and 
63 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

made the farm a perfect gem among the 
hills. 

But he had worked perhaps too hard 
and not taken time enough to rest and to 
think; and there came a day when a sad 
sight might be seen from those big home 
windows. There were only two in the 
wagon when they drove away, the father 
and his son, and neither of them seemed 
at all happy. Low on his seat in the back 
of the wagon the father sat, his hat pulled 
low down over his eyes and the collar of 
his great coat turned up to meet the rim 
of his hat. The son sat on the front seat. 
It was his turn to drive now, and he was 
driving. Where to? Shame upon that 
son, that we should be compelled to say it! 
The end of that journey was the awful, 
lonely, desolate poor-farm of the county! 
The old man was still himself. He knew 
and understood the tragedy which was 
being enacted. Was not he one of the 
chief actors? But he was weak in body 
and not very strong of mind any more. 
His hands no longer could swing the ax 
as in days gone by. Perhaps his judgment 
was not quite as good as it once was, for 
time had blurred the once keen mind. He 
was just a poor, little worn-out man! 
And that man on the front seat was his own 
son! He had tossed that man in his arms 
when he was a baby, their eyes meeting 
in glee, their voices mingling in delight! 
64 






WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

He had watched over him through all the 
long watches of many a night when pain 
wracked the little frame. Together they 
had wandered about the old farm. It had 
been his hands which taught the boy to 
make the first basswood whistle and to 
throw the dam for his mill across the brook 
that ran down through the meadow. He 
had done his best to show the lad he loved 
the best ways of doing the farm work. 
How can it be, then, that the old home 
windows should look out on such a scene 
as they made that day on the way to the 
poor- farm? 

The One Thing Lacking 

''Now, these are the commandments, 
the statutes, and the judgments which the 
Lord your God commanded to teach you, 
that ye might do them in the land whither 
ye go to possess it. 

''And thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy might. 

"And these words which I command 
thee this day shall be in thine heart. 

"And thou shalt teach them diligently 
unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thine house and 
when thou walkest by the way and when 
thou liest down and when thou risest up. 

"And thou shalt bind them for a sign 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

upon thine hand, and they shall be as 
frontlets between thine eyes. 

''And thou shalt write them upon the 
posts of thy house, and on thy gates." 

And here that father had missed it — 
missed it, and so missed of the one thing 
which alone makes life worth living! So 
the light went out on that hearth; for 
God's word is true, all true! The young 
man drove back without his father that 
day. He crept into the home nest. He 
thought he had done a thing that would 
make him supremely happy all the rest of 
his days! Wretched man! Of all things 
he could have done, that was the worst! 
He might have taken his father up tenderly 
in his arms when the strength began to 
slip away from the once sinewy arms and 
the light began to grow dim in the eyes 
once so keen, and said: ''Now, father, it 
is my turn to be good and kind to you, and, 
God helping me, I will do it! You are not 
a care to me ; I love you too well for that ! 
We will go right on together as we have 
all the way. When you fall, I will help 
you up. I will be eyes for you. You shall 
have the best place by the fireside. I will 
make the way down this side of the hill 
just as bright and sunshiny as I can! For 
you are my father and I love you!" 

That would have been honoring father! 
That would have gained for that son the 
promised reward. That would have kept 
66 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

the fire on the home hearth burning brightly 
and the Hght shining out of the window. 
But he did not do it, and a blight fell over 
the life that promised so much. There 
came a day when he nailed up the windows 
and went away, God only knows where! 
The windows were darkened. But the 
darkest windows of all were the windows 
in that man's soul! 

It strikes a chill to the heart to watch 
the decay of a home. Have you not 
watched it? Who knows how it happened 
that the place was left vacant? It does 
not matter now. But the very day the 
door swung to behind the men and the 
women who went out, destruction began 
to do its deadly work. It showed first in 
the paint on the outside of the house. It 
went on, crumbling the mortar in the 
walls and the bricks of the chimney. It 
ate the iron till the hinges dropped from 
their places and the doors fell in. It shook 
the plaster from the ceiling and stripped 
the pretty paper down everywhere. It 
rotted the wood of floor and casement. 
It broke in the glass of the windows and 
threw down the cellar wall. It never 
stopped until at last all that remained of 
that once happy home was a pile of rubbish 
and the rosebush mother planted by the 
side of the door! 

But a thousand times worse is it to 
follow the downfall of a life. You have 
67 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

watched that, too, and wished you had 
been spared the sight! 

How Was It Done? 

He came from a happy home yonder 

among the hills — perhaps from that very 
home we have just seen. Then the light 
was clear in his eyes. His heart was 
bounding with hope. Success sang a sweet 
song to him. He had such a good look on 
his face that he had no trouble in finding 
something to do. He was prosperous. 
Ever\'thing went well -v^^ith him. He had 
time to read the stor\' of the Cross, and did 
not forget to \sTite back home to mother. 
It seemed as if he were laying the walls of 
his life-temple well. If he had only kept 
true to his ideal I 

How was it that he should have changed 
his life-plan? God only knows! But he 
left the temple he had commenced to build 
and went away to build on something that 
would not stand. He moved out of the 
old home, and ruin took up its dreadful 
work. First the red came into the eyes 
once so clear. It showed in the flush on 
the face. It put a tremor into the hand 
once steady. He did not see it, for was he 
not doing well? He was in business for 
himself. Ever^-thing he touched turned to 
gold. He rode in a rubber-tired carriage. 
That was exchanged for an automobile. 
The poor machine went, to let in a more 
68 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

costly one. The world looked on and 
said, ^*How well he seems to be doing!'* 
And yet the beautiful house was being 
torn to pieces day by day! 

Oh, draw the curtain! Shut out the 
awful picture! Who can look unmoved 
on the pulling down of a life! Lost in the 
whirlpool of sin! Well if there be in the 
last days even the rose once set in the 
heart by the tender touch of a mother's 
hand! 

Shining Across Eternity 

Down among the hills of Kentucky, a 
few years ago, the early light of morning 
bathed in glory the figure of a young man. 
Forty miles from any railway station, out 
in the middle of a twelve-acre field, this 
daring soul was standing all alone. His 
head was bare, and upon its features rested 
a serious look which proved that his heart 
was stirred with a great purpose. For a 
moment he stood there, lost in prayer. 
Had there been a thousand at his side, no 
word of that prayer would have come to 
their ears, for his was a silent appeal to 
God for His blessing upon the enterprise 
he was that day to undertake. 

There, in that out-of-the-way place, 
young Burns was laying the corner-stone 
of what was afterward known as the 
Oneida Institute. With a love burning 
warm in his heart for the men and women 
69 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

of that feud-cursed country, Burns had 
gone into the wilds of Kentucky to build 
up a school which would, as he fondly 
hoped, educate the people away from 
hatred and strife to a life of good-will and 
helpfulness. Without a single penny in 
sight, but strong in the faith bequeathed 
to him by his sainted mother. Burns took 
up his mighty task. Out of two rusty iron 
crowbars he fashioned with his own hands 
the tools with which he broke from the 
nearby quarry the stones for the founda- 
tion of the building. Day by day he toiled 
on alone, with no hand to help, no voice 
to cheer. A borrowed team of oxen drew 
the dressed stone to the site; and then, in 
the gray light of that morning, he laid 
the corner-stone and dedicated the build- 
ing which was to be to God and his fellow- 
men! 

Thirteen years have gone by, and 
to-day Oneida Institute owns one thou- 
sand three hundred and fifty acres of land 
and a building in which six hundred 
students are taught by fifteen teachers, 
besides an adjunct school with one hun- 
dred pupils. Down from the mountains 
of the country round about these students 
have come, and within the walls of this 
consecrated building have been taught 
what true manhood and womanhood means. 
What a monument to the faith and the 
hope of the man who conceived a thing so 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

great! But the most beautiful monument 
to the honor of young Burns is the new- 
manhood which has taken possession of 
the people of that part of the country. 
The old spirit of feudism has been abso- 
lutely wiped out, and in its place has come 
the Christian spirit of brotherhood. From 
that school men and women have gone 
out to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
messengers of the new evangel. The 
shadows which once hung over those 
homes, where the voice of hatred sounded 
loudest of all, have lifted under the rays 
of the sunlight of love. Now those homes 
are radiant with God's glory. Hymns of 
joy and praise to Him who has wrought 
this transformation now rise where once 
hate and cursing reigned. 

How far the lights from that institu- 
tion are streaming! No one ever will 
know what pathways have been made 
bright by it! And its beams are only the 
reflection of the light set in the soul of the 
man who had this beautiful dream ! Oh, the 
windows of the soul ! God help us to keep 
them bright and clear! 

Bringing Back the Light 

On a lonely country road along which 

I sometimes pass, I used to see a house 

from which those who once made it their 

home have moved away. Why they went, 

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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

or when, I have no means of knowing; 
but there the house stood, desolate, its 
foundation stones falling from their place, 
the chimneys tumbling down, and the 
paint washing away with every storm. 
But the thing which brought most of sor- 
row to me was the window in the front of 
the building. Once it must have been 
very beautiful. Of great size and set 
round with mosaics of different colored 
glass, and looking out over a fine stretch 
of landscape, I used to think I would have 
enjoyed sitting there and feasting my eyes 
on the bit of beauty spread out before 
me. But now, what a wreck was that 
once-lovely window! How did it come 
about? It may be that one day some 
reckless passer-by, out of sheer malice, 
lifted a stone and hurled it straight through 
the crystal-clear glass! With a crash it 
went into a thousand pieces, scattering 
far and near. Some of the fragments fell 
away in upon the hearth -stone which the 
firelight once touched so brightly. Some 
dropped back outside the casement. Other 
pieces, held fast by the putty, still clung 
to the battered sash. But the window was 
ruined. 

Thick and fast disaster came after that. 
Every boy and every careless youth who 
passed that way felt that he was at liberty 
to fling a stone at the bright-tinted border- 
ing of colored glass, till at last scarce one 
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piece was left unbroken! And there the 
house stood, empty, still, lonely; but the 
most sorrowful thing of all seemed to be 
the shattered window! 

Just now down the street passed a man. 
You saw him, and did you cross the street 
to avoid him? Men have done that when 
they have seen afar off some battered hulk 
of humanity coming toward them; but if 
you loved him enough to go straight 
toward him and take him by the hand, 
you could not help but see what ruin had 
been wrought in his life. Who was it that 
threw the first stone which brought so 
much of destruction to that soul's window? 
God pity him, whoever he was! Be his 
motive what it may, one day he will have 
to stand up before God and tell why he 
dared to do a thing so base! Was it to 
make the man he ruined believe he was a 
''good fellow?'* Or was his purpose to 
win him out of the straight road of right 
and make him as bad as he himself was? 
Let that rest with Him who knows and is 
better able to judge all such things than 
w^ are. 

How fast the beautiful window was 
destroyed after that! Oh, the hands 
everywhere lifted to fling their stone at 
the man who has once entered the dark 
way of sin! So here he is, and you wish 
God might pity him and help him back 
to the old life of purity and usefulness! 
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Now the feet shuffle along clumsily. Now 
the hand shakes as with the palsy as he 
touches yours. Now the smile with which 
he gazes up into your face is blear and 
ghastly! Oh, the pity of it all! 

I passed that empty farmhouse again 
not long ago. A new man had come to 
make it his home. My heart leaped with 
joy as I saw what a change had been made 
since last I went that way. Many things 
had been done to bring back the beauty of 
that house — the walls had been laid up 
again, the boards had been painted afresh, 
the chimney was as good as new; but 
best of all, the lovely window was itself 
again! The great central pane of glass 
was in its place, while all set around it 
were the bright mosaics of red and green 
and yellow, flashing back the light just as 
of old! Oh, the joy of it all! 

And, blessed be the name of the Father, 
the man with the broken life may be 
restored ! Think of it ! And yours may be 
the hand, under God, of bringing back 
this beauty! Do n't pass him by, as if he 
were a leper! Take him by the hand! 
Speak the kindly word! G^t close to him! 
Hold him up till he is away out of the 
reach of danger and tell him, when reason 
comes back to its own, of the Christ who 
gave Himself for every poor, lost man in 
all this world! Love him back to his old 
self! God will help you to do it. How 
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quickly He wipes the sin-stains from the 
cheek! His touch is so tender! As if He 
would give beauty for ashes as quickly as 
possible, in a few weeks the red fades 
from the eye, the hand grows strong and 
firm, the step steady and true, the whole 
face lights up with hope and faith and 
gladness! It is the birthday of a soul! 

The Meadow Flower 

You found it down by the side of the 
brook. Something had happened to it. 
Perhaps some creature of the fields pass- 
ing that way had struck it and left it 
bruised and marred. Its stem was far-bent 
toward the earth. The beautiful blossoms 
were crushed and broken, but its fragrance 
still remained. Does it not seem as if the 
terrible blow which had been dealt it had 
been the means of bringing out all the 
perfume once hidden in its leaves and its 
petals? 

And you stoop and take the flower up 
from its lowly place in the deep grass. 
You drive down a strong stake nearby. 
You tie the stalk up carefully and bring 
water from the sparkling stream to refresh 
the wounded life. In the morning, when 
you come again, a miracle has been per- 
formed. Again the stem of the flower 
stands tall, straight, and strong. The 
blossoms which yesterday were crushed 
75 



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and mangled are now fresh and beautiful. 
The sunshine has kissed them back to life. 
The dew and the water from the brook 
have given new strength. The God of the 
flowers has brought back your flower! 

Crushed flowers! You see them every- 
where ; for gin never sleeps ! Right and 
left it is pushing and trampling down and 
ruining the choicest blossoms of our hearts*! 
But not without remedy! God can make 
the wrong right! Only do your part and 
He never will fail to do His! Lift the 
marred soul! Anchor it to the strong arm 
of Jesus! Water it from the fountain of 
life! Pity it! Love it with all your heart! 
Keep the fire of prayer warm on the forge 
of your soul! God will see, and He will 
work the miracle you long to behold ! 

The Temple's Working Room 

From an incoming train, not long ago, 
the baggage-master took a wheel-chair in 
which sat a helpless man. Not a muscle 
did he move while the trainmen were lift- 
ing him out to the heavy truck and then 
on down to the station platform. His face 
wore a sad, worried, drawn look, just the 
look that pain and suffering is apt to leave 
on the features. His hands fell limp in his 
lap. The men gathered round the oM 
man and bore him gently away from the 
train; and when a little later the fast ex- 
76 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

press on another road came in, they Hfted 
the helpless sufferer once more and placed 
him, still in his chair, in the baggage-car. 
It was all done very tenderly, as if the 
men knew all about it and sympathized 
with the one upon whom the hand of 
disease had settled so heavily. 

But on the last train the paralytic 
found one who seemed more gentle and 
considerate than any of the rest. The 
baggage-man tucked the blanket care- 
fully round the old man, talking to him 
cheerily and doing all in his power to make 
the trip a bit less lonely; and it seemed 
as if the wan features did light up a little 
under the touch of this loving ministra- 
tion. The old, worried look half faded. 
Noticing what his companion was doing, 
another of the trainmen by and by said: 

** Billy, what makes you take so much 
pains with that old chap? He is n't any- 
thing to you, is he?'' 

''Why yes," smiled back the other. 
**Did n't you know it? He's my brother." 

''Your brother, Billy? I never knew 
you had a brother." 

"I didn't use to have, Jim! Now I 
have lots of 'em!" 

Then with a more serious tone he went 
on: 

"I'll tell you, old man. Once I would 
have laughed at a man like this. But one 
day something new came into my life. I 
77 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

came to understand that He*s our Brother, 
and, because He is so, it makes us all 
brothers. If He was here, I'm sure He 
would do His best to look out for this old 
chap, because that was the way He did 
when He was here. And because He is n't 
here, and couldn't be. He left such jobs 
to the rest of us. He would want him to 
have the best time he could, and that's 
what I have tried to give him!" 

As He would have done! If Jesus had 
been here that day, I think He would have 
laid His hand on that poor, racked frame 
and made it all well again. He loved to do 
such things. The sight of pain made His 
heart sore. But seeing that He was away, 
doing a greater and a grander work for 
the world, trusting His brethren down 
here to do the work He might have done 
the very best they could, this man of the 
baggage-car was right in everything he did. 
It was all in the Master's name, and 
brought a double blessing — a blessing to 
him who gave and a blessing to him who 
received. 

Where are Our Working Rooms? 

That baggage-car was the working- 
room of one man. Where is mine? His 
was narrow and cramped, but it was just 
the place Jesus would have chosen to do a 
similar kindness, I am sure, had His cir- 
cumstances been the same. He never 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

waited for a beautiful place before He did 
a beautiful deed. It was the beautiful 
deed which made the place beautiful. It 
was in a lowly fisher's cot that He laid 
His hand lovingly on the burning head of 
the wife of Simon and cured her of the 
fever. Very humble was that home where 
He was preaching the day when the four 
let down through the roof that helpless 
man to be made whole. Out under the 
skies with one lone-hearted woman He 
taught the grandest of truths. In a most 
simple room He knelt with the towel about 
His waist and gave the world the sweetest 
lesson it ever had of true Christian service. 

Sometimes you and I fret because we 
are not given a more beautiful place in 
which to perform our work. '^If we only 
had such a place," we sigh, ''we would do 
such wonderful things!" Then we would 
weave the costliest robe the world ever 
saw for the shoulders of the Master! Then 
we would paint the loveliest picture of His 
face that mortal eyes ever rested upon! 
Then our hands would carve a statue of the 
Christ which should be more glorious 
than any which ever graced a hall of fame ! 
Then we would sing earth's sweetest song 
or write its grandest poem! Because no 
place such as that is given us we stand 
waiting, and night is coming on fast! 

Some day we will know that our pic- 
ture will be painted, our statue carved, 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

our song sung just where we are, for the 
working-rooms of our life-temples are 
within our hearts! 

The Heroine of the Loom-beam 

Think of one woman's field of battle! 
She had been a teacher, but she laid down 
that work to become the wife of a farmer. 
She made that humble place one the 
Christ would have loved in His earth-life. 
But a shadow fell across the threshold — 
the awful shadow of war — and that shadow 
did not lift until there was a vacant place 
forever by the fireside and an aching sore 
in the heart of the one who was left alone. 
For a time some thought the home must 
be broken up. That was what she was 
advised to do, let the boys and girls go 
and fight life's battles alone. Listen to 
this woman of the brave heart! 

'*As long as I can keep my children 
together, I will do it!" 

From its place in some dusty attic she 
brought down an old loom and set it up 
in the kitchen. In the days of her girl- 
hood she had laughed when her mother 
taught her how to use the simple thing. 
Now she thanked the kindness which had 
so armed her for the battle before her. 
And was that the last of this heroine of 
the loom-beam? Was her life thenceforth 
to be lost, save as it appeared in the cloth 
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li 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

she wove for the neighbors round about? 
Do you think God would let it be so with 
one whose heart was stayed on Him? He 
is kinder far than that. 

Over the River the spirit of that mother 
has for many years been dwelling in the 
sunHght of God's love; but her place on 
earth is not vacant! She still lives in the 
person of her children. Three sons and 
three daughters, all honored and respected, 
tell the story of her work at the loom- 
beam. She was their best teacher. She 
taught her boys and girls lessons from the 
book lying on the beam at her side which 
helped them to win all that was best in 
the world; but those lessons were only 
carefully-chiseled stones upon which the 
real structure of their life-work was laid. 
The education of the heart she imparted 
was best of all, for it was drawn from the 
Book she loved so well! The sweetest cup 
of water she gave her little ones was that 
filled at the fountain of life from which she 
herself drank such deep drafts! 

O Mother! That was a lowly place, 
but thou didst magnify and make it beau- 
tiful with thy love! Thou art now an 
angel, but thou art still mother to those 
who are yet building the temple of which 
thou didst place the corner-stones! Thou 
art in their daily tasks! In the dreams 
of their lives thou art the central figure 
through which they see the Christ! When 
^ 81 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

their vision of the Savior grows dim in the 
dust of the world they look back to that 
poor, little, old loom-beam and see thee 
toihng so bravely and so cheerfully; and 
seeing thee, the beautiful Face grows more 
clear! When their faith wavers, they 
think of thy faith and are restored! Thy 
voice, sounding across the years, saying, 
**He is my refuge and my fortress; my 
God: in Him will I trust!" heartens them, 
and all is well! 

The Hour that is Still 

This was the working-room of my 
mother's soul. I never shall know this 
side eternity all it wrought out for me! 
The slipping of her shuttle back and forth 
through the web of the cloth she wove was 
all I saw then. The rattle of the lathe 
pressing back the threads of the web and 
the woof sounded dull and commonplace 
to me; but now I know that something 
far more beautiful than anything I then 
dreamed of was being woven into the gar- 
ment of my life in those days when I 
stood by her side. The finest work she 
wrought was by the touch of her soul upon 
the souls of those she loved. God only 
saw that; but He did see it, and He will 
never forget! 

Best of all do I love to think of the 
resting-room of my mother's life-temple. 
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When the week grew old and the Sabbath 
Day drew on, she would gather us at even- 
tide in the still home far out in the country 
and tell us stories from the Book or sing 
the sweet songs of the Kingdom. The soft 
chirp of the tired birds outside, as they 
fluttered up to their nests in the trees or 
whispered to their little ones down in the 
grass, mingled dreamily with the rustling 
of the leaves swaying in the wind. A holy 
hush seemed to lie over the world. How 
near God was in that twilight hour! 

As long as the light from the sinking 
sun fell through the west window, the 
stories and the songs would go on. Then, 
with her hands folded across her lap, 
she would look away beyond the hills, 
farther than any star shone, beyond the 
deep-blue of the sky, as if up to the '*many 
mansions.*' By and by softly would rise 
the notes of that dear old hymn, '*Thus 
far the Lord hath led me on!" 

In those still moments it seemed as if 
we all came very near to the heart of God, 
borne on the wings of mother's faith. How 
much of peace and rest came to her as she 
sat there we never may know. But often 
since then, when life's way has lain through 
thorns and over stones, I have turned 
back the pages of memory and received 
fresh glimpses of the glory which then 
flooded mother's soul, and the vision has 
sent me on my way with fresh vigor toward 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

the sunlit land which is now almost within 
my sight! 

**My heart is resting, O my God — 

I will give thanks and sing; 
My heart is at the secret source 

Of every precious thing. 
Now, the frail vessel Thou hast made 

No hand but Thine shall fill — 
The waters of the earth have failed, 

And I am thirsty still. 

" I thirst for springs of heavenly life, 

And here all day they rise — 
I seek the treasure of Thy love, 

And close at hand it lies. 
And a new song is in my mouth, 

To long-loved music set — 
Glory to Thee for all the grace 

I have not tasted yet! 

" I have a heritage of joy 
That yet I must not see; 
The Hand that bled to make it mine 

Is keeping it for me. 
My heart is resting on His truth 

Who hath made all things mine, 

Who draws my captive will to Him 

And makes it one with Thine ! " 

— A. L, Waring. 

Need of the Quiet Hour 

In a very thoughtful article recently 
published, Dr. Max G. Schlapp, one of the 
leading neurologists of this country, tells 
us that this Nation is menaced by a great 
danger, the danger that men and women 
will break down under the strain of our 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

modern industrial life. Premonitions of 
this giving way are already seen, he points 
out, in the greatly diminished birth-rate 
of the country, in the awful increase in the 
number of those who are defective and out 
of balance mentally, physically, and mor- 
ally. Commenting on this article, the 
editor of the magazine in which it was 
published expresses the opinion that we 
need to flee to the quiet of the country to 
find relief from the nerve-racking life 
which is so fast destroying our people. 

But those who are in close touch with 
the country know that those living most 
near to the heart of nature are being in- 
vaded by the same enemy which is laying 
waste the manhood and womanhood of the 
cities. The men and women of the farms 
are breaking down, too. The pressure of 
life there is just so severe. The strain 
there is no less terrible. But were this not 
true, grant that the woods and the fields 
do afford some measure of relief as sug- 
gested, it still remains a fact that men can 
not all live in the country. Never again 
will the race find its home out under the 
stars. That time has gone forever by. 
We must seek a remedy somewhere else. 
What can that remedy be? What but the 
great, tender, and loving heart of Jesus? 
He is what we need, for only He can give 
us rest of soul, without which we must all 
go down in wreck and ruin ! We may cry, 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Lo! here or Lo! there, but Jesus Christ, 
and He alone, can show us the way back 
to health of body, mind, and soul! 

Jesus Longs to Give Peace 

Rest from every ache of heart, hand, or 
spirit comes through the Christ, and He is 
ready and waiting to provide us with it. 
Nay, He pleads with His children to leave 
the empty pods of life and hasten back to 
the Father's house, where the ring and the 
robe and the joy everlasting await us. 
But we will not listen! 

*'But,'' do you say, '*we can not listen! 
If we do, we can not hear His voice! The 
world will not let us rest! The tumult of 
life drowns the sweet tones of His voice! 
We can not see His face for the throng 
which presses us ever farther and farther 
from His side! We would like to come 
near enough to touch the hem of His robe, 
but we are swept away by the tide of evil ! 
Our hands reach out toward Him, but they 
clutch only the empty air!'* 

A few years ago I paid a visit to a 
great factory where from morning to night 
men worked with heavy hammers and 
ponderous machinery, which turned the 
whole neighborhood into a babel of con- 
fusion. How the clanging of steel on steel 
deafened me! My head rang with the 
din! In vain I tried to catch the words 
86 



II 
I 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

spoken to me by my guide; they were 
only a blur of sound ! I wondered how any- 
thing could be done there in an effective 
way. And yet the men in that shop were 
going about their work as calmly as if 
they had been miles away from that scene 
of turmoil! I saw them speak to each 
other, apparently in the most ordinary 
tone of voice. How could they do it! 

It was simply because they had learned 
to listen in the midst of confusion. Their 
ears were attuned to the crash of the ham- 
mers and the thunder of heavy machinery. 
They did not hear the clang and the 
clatter as I did. They were living in a peace 
of which I knew nothing. 

Have you not known Christians who 
have come into such fellowship with God 
that they are not disturbed by anything 
that comes to them? God gives such 
peace to the souls of those who seek it. 
Through Him we may come into such 
harmony with the source of power that the 
rush and the tumult of the world no longer 
worry us or push us to distraction. Then 
doubts vanish. Then we tread our way 
in joy, straight toward Him! 

A Vision of Jesus 

But how shall we come into such blessed 
peace? How can we shut out the world 
so that we may hear what He would say to 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

us? The sounds of this earth deafen us so! 
Its sights are so attractive! 

Often when the things of time distract 
and the heart is tired, just to go and stand 
before the picture of one we loved in the 
long ago — perhaps that of a mother now 
in glory — will still the fevered pulses and 
send us out to a calmer, sweeter life. 

''I have your pictures on the table 
before me. Every time I look up, I see 
them. I love to look at them! They help 
me, because I know you are thinking of 
me and wishing me good things!" 

It is just a scrap from the letter of a 
young student far from home, written to 
his father and mother; and yet are we not 
all far from the Father's house, and do 
we not all long for home and His blessed 
face? How homesick the heart does be- 
come at times! The tears are hot on our 
cheeks at night, and we toss about till the 
morning light streams in at the window. 
Then if we could only rest our tired souls 
by feasting them upon the Face Beautiful! 
Well for us if we have hung in the temple 
we are building many pictures of the Lord 
we love! 

Think what it would mean on the days 
when we feel the thrill of power and pride 
and passion coursing madly through our 
veins, so that we forget everything in the 
strife for fame and dominion over men — 
to conquer the v/orld and all in it — think 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

what it would mean, then, suddenly to be 
brought face to face with the Christ and 
hear Him say: 

"If a man abide not in Me, he is cast 
forth as a branch and is withered; and 
men gather them and cast them into the 
fire, and they are burned! . . . Herein 
is My Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit: so shall ye be My disciples!'' 

How it would still the passion in our 
hearts! It would be almost as if we heard 
again, ringing down through the ages, 
that other solemn word of warning: 

"A thousand years in Thy sight are as 
but yesterday when it is past, and as a 
watch in the night. 

''Thou earnest them away as with a 
flood. They are as a sleep. In the morn- 
ing they are like grass which groweth up. 

"In the morning it flourisheth and 
groweth up; in the evening it is cut down 
and withereth. 

"For we are consumed by Thine anger, 
and by Thy wrath are we troubled.'' 

Then would the dream of earthly pride 
take its flight! The fire of human power 
would burn to cinders and the cinders 
would turn to ashes on the hearth! We 
would see of how little consequence are the 
things of earth, unless they lead to fruit 
for the Master! 

Or when we are lonely, thinking all is 
lost and we have been bereft of hope and 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

heaven and Jesus, just to go in and sit 
down before the face of the Man of Naz- 
areth as the two saw it that day when they 
walked with the Stranger along the dusty 
way to Emmaus, and listen to the cheer- 
ing words He spoke — what joy and reas- 
surance! How our hearts would burn 
again within us ! No longer would the sky 
be dimmed by cloud! The way would be 
dreary no more! The discordant sounds 
of earth would grow still, and heaven would 
be once more in our hearts! 

Then, too, on the days when the sense 
of inbred sin comes crowding in upon us, 
tearing from our souls all save the surety 
of perdition, what if there should flash 
upon us the Face Beautiful as it appeared 
when the crown of thorns pierced His brow, 
when He was mocked and beaten and spit 
upon and weighed down with the sin of the 
world — suppose we should see Him then 
and hear Him say, with a smile radiant 
with heaven's glory in spite of the crimson 
drops trickling from the cruel thorn-points: 
''It is for you, My child! Be not afraid! 
Take heart! I have done all, all for thee! 
Only give Me thy heart's best! All shall 
be well!'* The doubt would roll away at 
the foot of the Cross, and we would bear 
home with us a song! 

And I think a picture which would 
bring us much of peace would be that of 
the Face Beautiful as it looked into the 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

eyes of those who came to Him with most 
of soul-need. How much of beauty must 
have shone out when He beheld the woman 
who crept through the crowd to touch 
with her fingers the hem of His robe that 
day! Oh, the joy to have heard Him say, 
*' Daughter, be of good comfort! Thy faith 
hath made thee whole!'* Can we fancy 
the expression which rested on His face as 
He noted the anxious look of the young 
man who ^*had great possessions,'' and, 
beholding, "loved him," even though He 
must say to him, "One thing thou lack- 
est!" and had to bear the sorrow of seeing 
the one toward whom His warm heart 
went out turn away, and know that it was 
forever! What pity must have revealed 
itself on the face of the Christ at that 
moment! Pity heightened with love di- 
vine ! How can it be that such love should 
not avail to reach the human heart! So 
stony, so proud, so unyielding! Think of 
the pity, too — pity now glorified by richest 
love — ^when Jesus mingled His tears with 
those of the sisters of Lazarus! And then 
to think that for every one of us — for you 
and for me — the same pity, the same love, 
"flow mingled down." 

Oh, friend of my heart, let us beautify 
every room of our temple of the soul with 
these precious pictures of the Face Beau- 
tiful! But let us keep for the Inner 
Chamber the one which shall bring us face 
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to face with Him as He must have looked 
that night in the Upper Room with those 
He loved best, when for the last time He 
took the cup and broke the bread, estab- 
lishing the bkssed memorial which is to out- 
last the stars, and spoke those sweet words: 

''Let not your hearts be troubled; ye 
believe in God, believe also in Me. 

''In My Father's house are many 
mansions: if it were not so, I would have 
told you. I go to prepare a place for you!*' 

That will be the most restful place of 
all in our house of the soul, built unto God. 

How gracious He is to give us these 
resting places by the way! Very merci- 
fully does He shield and protect His own 
when they are sore pressed. He will not 
let the testing be too hard nor too long. 
Why does He touch the wing of the bird 
with green and with gray? Why, save that 
He knows that the day will come when the 
hitherto unseen foe will swiftly shoot 
through the air and strike down its victim 
if some way be not provided for escape? 
The tinting of the birdling's wing so nearly 
like that of the leaves or the grass in 
which it takes refuge is God's way of sav- 
ing the life of the little feathered thing He 
loves. Why is the homely frog able to 
cover itself with that strange, slippery 
exudation which in times of crisis appears 
upon its body? Why, but to protect it from 
danger? It is God — the Mighty One, the 
92 



I 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

God who holds the worlds in their places 
and speeds them on their way with never- 
varying accuracy, reaching down to save 
this poor, little humble creature He has 
made and given a place in His universe! 
Such care for the humblest, and will 
He forget you and me? Ah, no! So He 
bids us build, under His guiding eye, a 
place of resting into the mansion of our 
souls. And the doorway should stand ever 
ajar! If at any time we find it shut fast 
and locked, it is surely because we have 
willed it! And to open the door and to 
gain access to this room of resting, we have 
only to take the key He has furnished and 
use it as He has bidden and step over the 
threshold to peace and joy with Him! 
The key to this door? Oh, the mystic, the 
potent thing — Prayer ! With how much of 
beauty has Bishop Trench spoken of its 
power! 

"Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
Spent in Thy presence can prevail to make! 
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take ! 

What parched grounds revive, as with a shower! 

We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; 
We rise, and all, the distant and the near, 
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear! 

We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power! 

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, 

Or others, that we are not always strong; 

That we are ever overborne with care; 

That we should ever weak and heartless be, 

Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 
And joy and strength and courage are with 
Thee!" 

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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Here is our refuge when the storms are 
high! Here the sounds of the world grow 
dim! Here the shine of the false no 
longer dazzles us ! Here the doubts shrivel 
and disappear and we see Jesus, and seeing 
Him, we are made whole f 

Treasures of the Heart 

Coasting in the Tunisian Sea four 
years ago, the keel of the boat of a band of 
sponge fishers suddenly crashed into some- 
thing as immovable as a rock. At first 
these objects were mistaken for heavy 
cannon, buried in the mud. Perhaps they 
had been lost ages ago when some vessel 
of war went down. Curious to know more 
about their strange discovery, the fisher- 
men dropped anchor and spent some time 
sounding the depths of the sea. Wonder- 
ful to behold were the treasures which 
their grappling hooks brought up! Not 
war guns, but beautiful art-treasures which 
must have lain there at the bottom of the 
bay at least two thousand years. Ever 
since that time the Bureau of Archaeology 
of Tunis has been working to save as many 
of these treasures of a bygone day as pos- 
sible. The task has proved to be far 
greater than was at first anticipated, but 
the result has amply repaid the govern- 
ment for all the time and expense. From 
the slime and the ooze of the sea the 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

divers have brought up numberless pieces 
of bronze statuary, fragments of furniture 
done in the highest style of Grecian art, 
marble pieces, including bases and capitals 
of pillars, blocks of exquisitely carved 
stone, vases, terra cotta pieces, and 
amphorae, many of which have been 
singularly well preserved. 

As the divers, after the most arduous 
labor, and often at the risk of life itself, 
lifted these treasures from the deep, for a 
time it seemed as if it had been strength 
spent in vain. No one could tell what the 
particular object was that had been re- 
covered ; but when the thick layers of 
mud and shells which encrusted them had 
been scraped off, the sculpture appeared 
in all its original beauty. 

Wonderful treasure given back from 
the wreck of some ship which had gone 
down in the wind and the storm twenty 
centuries ago! How they will be prized 
by lovers of the beautiful the world over! 

In one of our popular magazines, Mrs. 
Mitchell tells of a visit she once paid to 
the home of a man who had for years 
given himself to the development of a 
great mine in the mountains of the West. 
Fortune had favored him; he was now 
worth his millions. With evident delight 
he showed his visitor through the rooms of 
his beautiful mansion, dwelling with par- 
ticular pleasure upon the many pieces of 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

furniture he had gathered at great cost 
from lands far and near. 

At last he led the way to his private 
study; and now a marked change came 
over his manner. No longer was he the 
man of millions. For the moment he 
seemed to forget the mines of which he 
was master. It was nothing to him, now, 
that his wealth had made his name known 
far and wide. He was only a pilgrim on 
life's way resting for a little while by a 
singing brook. 

''I want to show you something,'' he 
said, a peculiar glow of joy lighting up 
his face, at the same time opening the 
door of a safe at one side of the room. 
Then he took out a little box, heavily 
bound with steel. Surely, the visitor 
thought, this must contain precious jewels. 
Such care would not otherwise be given to 
this casket. But when the lid was lifted, 
not sparkling gems from faraway mines, 
not glittering jewels, costly and rare, met 
the lady's gaze, but a little, old gray 
shawl, fringed with black! As if the thing 
were prized beyond all he had shown his 
visitor, he carefully unfolded the shawl. 

'*My mother's shawl!" he said, softly. 
**She wore this about her shoulders; and 
when she died and the things were divided 
among us, I asked for this for my share! 
It never has left me. When I had nothing 
in which to carry it, during the hard days 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

out there, I wore it folded across my chest, 
under my shirt! It has kept me straight! 
It is going to lead me into heaven! I do 
not know how nor when, but I can bank 
on it as a certainty. It is so full of home- 
memories that I never have been able to 
get away from them! It is mother's whole 
personality concentrated! She always 
made the best of me, even in my wrong- 
doing! She has kept on making the best of 
me ever since !*' 

Things Worth While 

Room for the treasures! Ah, yes, there 
surely must be in the life-temple we are 
building some place for the things we hold 
most dear, for we are all gathering out of 
our every-day life and experience some- 
thing that will last forever. The place as- 
signed to these treasures may be spacious 
and beautiful, or it may be narrow and 
cramped and dingy, according to the plan 
after which we are building. The things 
we store away may be few and of little 
worth, or they may be many and full of 
beauty. It all depends upon what our 
hearts prize most highly. The better the 
thought, the richer the treasure. Is it a 
little faded and thread-bare shawl, with 
its memories of the dear one who used to 
wear it, ever tugging heavenward, or is it 
some cheap and tawdry thing that will 

7 97 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

fade with the going down of life's sun? Is 
it a letter, now crisp and yellow with age, 
written by the hand which once tenderly 
cooled your forehead when you were toss- 
ing on your bed with the fever? Is it a 
cradle with rockers worn flat in the years 
when mother's hand gently stirred it back 
and forth, the while she crooned her lullaby 
to the boy she loved? Be it what it may, 
if love laid it away in the chamber of your 
life-temple, it is more precious than all the 
gold of the Orient, for it never will cease 
to call you up to the paradise of God ! All 
the wealth he had taken from the hills 
could not do for that man what the little 
gray shawl was doing moment by moment. 

Stay for this other thought, friend of 
the sunset days! 

You and I are hurrying down life's 
western slope. The temple is almost done. 
What are we storing away in its treasure- 
room for our dear ones? Are we giving 
out to those we meet from day to day 
along the way something which they will 
like to lay aside carefully in their own 
temple-chamber — something that will help 
to bring them safe home by and by? 
Something they will surely take from our 
hands! The thought is startling, but we 
know it is true. We can not touch the life 
of another and not leave it a little dif- 
ferent from what it was. 

The meadow flower we stoop to pluck 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

leaves with us some memory. Press a 
sprig of mint between your fingers and 
the perfume comes up to cheer and refresh 
us for hours. The fragrance of mignonette 
Hngers, who knows how long! The rose- 
leaves we hold in our hand in the morning 
impart a perfume which does not pass 
away with the setting of the sun; we go 
to our rest to dream of it still. So a hun- 
dred flower plants send out their fra- 
grance, some rare and delicate, some coarse 
and repulsive ; some so sweet we can never 
forget them, some awakening only feelings 
of loathing. 

It is not otherwise with the little deeds 
of our lives, friend of my heart. They 
stay in the soul of somebody, becoming a 
part of his life-building. Do they help and 
bless and cheer, or do they mar and sting 
and hurt? When they have been stored 
away in the treasure-room of the soul, 
will they lead to hope, to heaven, and to 
God? Or will they bring a chill and a 
blight to those we would not harm for all 
the world? We need to pray very earnestly 
that our lives may be so guided by Him, 
so under His protecting care that our every 
act, our every word, even the look on our 
faces, may be strong and helpful and up- 
lifting. 

We may not always know that the 
thoughts we express, the deep longings of 
our hearts for those we love, are doing 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

what we would like them to do. Weaving 
the web of life, we are so busy with the 
way we push the shuttle through, or the 
clatter of the loom, lest all should not be 
running as it should, that we do not note 
the beauty of the pattern growing under 
our hands. It is only when God lifts the 
finished cloth and holds it up for the light 
of His love to shine through that we be- 
hold what we have wrought. 

At a meeting of young people, a young 
man read a paper into which he had put 
the best thought of his life. When it was 
done and he was gone, a minister, in 
speaking of the article to a friend, said: 

''It could not help being good! Did 
you see what a good face he had? You 
could see that he has been with Jesus!*' 

This little tribute of appreciation came 
to the ears of the young man's father. Did 
not God take care that he should be thus 
encouraged? With tears in his eyes he 
said: 

''I would rather the minister should be 
able to say that of my boy than to tell me 
he had fallen heir to a fortune!" 

The hope, the care, the gentle leading 
of the father-heart are chiseling out a 
treasure that will last till the stars grow 
dim and God calls, ''Come home!" 



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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

Gold or Dross? 

Sometimes we mistake dross for gold. 
In the days of my boyhood, while remov- 
ing some giant stones from the meadow, 
my father broke from one of them a 
great fragment. As the heavy maul 
struck the lump from the boulder, a 
smaller piece went hurtling through the 
air, glistening in the sunlight when it fell. 
How carefully we watched the shining 
thing until it at last rested on the earth! 
Very eagerly we followed its course, hunt- 
ing in the grass until we held it in our 
hands. Was it gold? Surely it had the 
shimmer of that metal. From the rock 
my father broke other fragments, saving 
all the bright particles he could find. Then 
he took them away to one who was skilled 
in determining the value of metals to see 
if we really had found gold in the heart 
of the rock; but when he came back, 
father brought us the disappointing report 
that what we had hoped would prove to 
be the precious metal was only the most 
worthless dross! 

How much of our lives is spent in just 
that way — gathering up dust which glit- 
ters, but glitters to deceive! Before our 
eyes some gay thing flutters into sight. It 
looks so beautiful as it sails above our 
heads! ''We must have it!" we cry, and 
spring out and away in full pursuit. The 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

way is rough. We stumble and go down. 
Our feet are wet in the water of the brook 
through which we plunge. The sun is hot. 
The sweat stands out on our foreheads. 
Friends call us back, but we hurry madly 
on, for we must not lose sight of the ob- 
ject of our chase. When at last we come 
up to it and hold it in our hands, lo! it is 
only a dead leaf, drifting before the wind, 
or a bit of white foam, tossing on the 
shifting billow ! 

But the strange thing about it is that 
we are so blinded we still believe the faded 
leaf is worth all it has cost us! We hide 
it away in the soul's treasure-house, as if 
it were the only thing in life worthy to be 
sought and saved ! 

Look into the faces of the men and 
women you meet on the street to-day. 
What is the meaning of the expression you 
see there — so strained, so cold, so passion- 
less? It sends a chill over the heart. And 
why the mad rush everywhere, day and 
night, showing itself in every movement — 
what does it reveal? What but that men 
are burning their souls out for dross! 

And what a tragedy it is that so many 
fathers and mothers should tell their sons 
and daughters that the dross for which 
they are starving themselves is the only 
thing worth while! We hear it on every 
hand — '* Dross is the thing that makes 
happy! Get it! Get it somehow, any- 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

how!'* Papers and magazines hold up 
before our boys as examples of true success 
men who have amassed fortunes. Women 
who spend thousands for dress in a single 
year, women who wear gems in their hair 
and jewels on their feet — these are the 
pattern many hold up for their daughters! 
Oh, the bitterness of it all, that the beau- 
tiful temple of the soul should be cumbered 
with such poor, worthless things ! By and by 
we shall come to the day of testing, then 
we will surely cry in sorrow and shame: 

''Father, forgive! We have missed 
life's meaning! Our treasures are nothing 
but chaff! We have done nothing to make 
our own lives rich or to beautify the life 
of any one else!" 

It need not be so. It is not necessary 
for us to build after such a fashion. Trink- 
ets such as these need not be considered 
priceless jewels. For we have a better 
pattern — even the Lord's Christ! Follow- 
ing Him, we shall not make such fatal mis- 
takes! Our souls will then be stored with 
real treasures! We shall have held the 
light so bright and clear that those whose 
lives have felt the touch of ours will have 
been made thereby sweeter and purer and 
grander ! That will be worth while ! 

"A little while of mingled joy and sorrow, 
A few more years to wander thus below, 
To wait the dawning of that golden morrow, 
When morn shall break above our night of woe. 

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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

"A few more thorns about our pathway growing 
Ere yet our hands may cull the heavenly flowers; 
The morning comes, but first the tearful sowing, 
Ere we repose these weary souls of ours. 

"A little while for winning souls to Jesus, 
Ere we behold His beauty face to face; 
A little while for healing soul diseases 
By teUing others of a Savior's grace. 

"A little while to spread the joyful story 

Of Him who made our guilt and curse His own ; 
A little while ere we behold the glory. 

To gain fresh jewels for our heavenly crown. 

"A little while, then we shall dwell forever 
Within our bright, our everlasting home. 
Where time or space or death can no more sever 
Our grief -wrung hearts, and pain can never 
come. 

*' *T is but a little while; the way is dreary. 
The night is dark, but we are nearing land; 
O for the rest of heaven, for we are weary, 
And long to mingle with the deathless band!" 



The Nest in the Ivy Vine 

In the spring of every year there comes 
to an ivy-vine which clambers over one 
end of the porch of our country home a 
winsome Httle wren. Under the cover of 
the friendly leaves, the pretty little crea- 
ture of the gray and brown feather builds 
her nest and rears her young. She seems 
never to be afraid of the people of the 
house who now and then come to peep 
over the edge of the nest to look at the 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

eggs or to rejoice at the mystery of the 
birdlings which burst from the shell in 
God's own time. If any expression more 
than another reveals itself in her twinkling 
eye, it is one of surprise that we should be 
so interested in what is to her the most 
commonplace of events. But I think she 
is glad we love her and do not drive her 
from the sheltering vine. 

Just about the same time of the year, 
out in the old High Sweet apple tree in the 
yard, for many years a bluebird made her 
home in a hole well up the side of the 
trunk. I am sure she would be coming 
yet were it not for the fact that the fine 
old tree went down one day in a storm. 
The bluebird, too, seemed very happy to 
be so near to her friends of human kind, 
and surely we have always been glad that 
we were thus honored. It seemed to us 
that the birds show their confidence in 
venturing so near; and if the time ever 
comes when they no longer build their nests 
round our home, we shall be afraid there 
is something wrong on our part, and set 
about it at once to mend our ways. What 
would the home be to us without the birds ! 
Birds and boys and girls keep the heart 
from breaking! When the birds take their 
flight we are lonely, but there is still com- 
fort in the presence of the young folks. 
When they, too, slip out of the home-nest 
and fly away, it seems as if the clock of 
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time has stopped — we miss its cheery 
ticking in every room of the house! 

Be glad when birds and boys and girls 
come under the shadow of your roof tree! 

A farmhouse I know is the refuge of 
men and women for miles around who 
have trouble of any kind. Many, many 
times every year the woman with the sweet 
face who makes that home the best place 
in all the world for her husband and the 
children sits down in her pretty room 
heart-to-heart with some farmer's wife who 
has missed her way in the darkness and 
needs a word of cheer. Scarcely less often 
does the farmer leave his work and come 
in from the fields to listen to the story of 
some man whose life has not been what it 
should be, and who feels that he must lay 
his heart bare to some one he can trust! 
And they all go away with a new resolve 
and a brighter hope. If all the stories 
which come to this couple of the old farm 
home could be told, they would make a 
book more thrilling than any romance. 

But why do these sore-hearted ones 
come to this home, rather than to any 
other? For the same reason that the birds 
build their nests in the old ivy- vine by our 
porch. As the way-worn traveler, spent 
by his Alpine climbing, seeks the shelter 
of the hospice, so these travelers on life's 
harder way flee to the comforting presence 
of this man and woman of the pure heart. 
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1 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

The secret? Is it not the love shining out 
in word and kindly deed? Would the 
tempest-tossed come to that farm home 
more than once if they should be met the 
first time with a harsh rebuff? Ah, no! 
They would creep away in sorrow, with 
bowed heads, moaning, '*We thought we 
would find a friend in you! Our hearts 
were so sore; now they are broken!" 

And there are so many who need com- 
forting! Look at the tear-stained faces 
which gaze into your own every time you 
step from your door ! Life presses so hard ! 
Its problems are so difficult! How it 
does help just to sit down face to face with 
one who knows about the burden and who 
cares! Who cares! That is it! So many 
do not care. They do not want to care. 
It is too much trouble to care! Thank the 
kind Heavenly Father that there are still 
many who care! 

The Scar that Was Hidden 

Waking in a lonely cabin home which 
had given him refuge when he was tired 
and sick and discouraged, a traveler no- 
ticed a pretty vine climbing up the side of 
the wall from a vase on a stand below. 
Over one particular place he saw that the 
vine had been trained to hold its course 
back and forth a number of times. Curious 
to know why this was so, he rose and pulled 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

the leaves away. Just where the leaves 
were thickest he saw a great break in the 
wall. It was to hide this broken spot that 
the vine had been so delicately led to trace 
its way back and forth. 

*'It is like the kindness they have 
shown me when I least expected it!" he 
said to himself. '^They took my hand and 
drew me in when I knocked at their door! 
It is a lowly home, and yet rich in love! 
And that love reaches even to the broken 
places in my life!" 

What does the love of your heart cover 
in the life of your neighbor? Ought it not 
to hide all the mistakes, all the sins, all 
the broken places? That is what God's 
greater love does for you. Stop and think 
of it! ''Oh!" do you say, ''1 do not want 
to think of it! Far more gladly would I 
have it all wiped out of mind!" 

That is what I heard a man say one 
night at the Bowery Mission in New York. 
It was a time of giving personal experience, 
and every word was full of sobs. The 
story of the man of whom I speak had 
been told. Then came the agonizing cry: 

''Oh! if I could only forget the past 
with all its sins and its heartaches! Then 
I could begin really to live! If I could 
only forget!" 

Across the room a lady with the calm of 
heaven in her face rose and said: 

"God knows it is not best that you 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

should forget! You might slip back and 
be lost if you could forget! He is kinder 
to you than you think! He does not let 
you forget, because He loves you so! 
Memory is the best friend you have, aside 
from God! It is God, working out your 
salvation! Oh, I know how it hurts, but 
its hurt is so merciful ! It saves ! '* 

Yes, memory is a chain of gold binding 
us to the right life! If it should break we 
would fall to the bottomless pit! Then, 
think of what you were when God lifted 
you from the miry clay and set your feet 
upon the rock ! Torn by passion, tormented 
by sin, yet not owning the cause of your 
trouble! Blinded by the glamour of your 
evil life, yet loving the thing which is work- 
ing your ruin! Wandering alone on the 
mountains, where the thorns tear your 
flesh and the storm beats upon you piti- 
lessly, yet listening only to the voice of the 
evil spirit whispering ever, '*This is the 
right pathway! Follow me! I will make 
you happy!*' Then, when your feet were 
fast taking hold upon hell, He had mercy 
upon you and lifted you out and up to 
Himself! Oh, love so boundless! And 
shall not your love, which is only the love 
of God showing through your life, reach 
to the uttermost? O Father! Give us 
more of this mighty love, the love which 
sees not the mistakes of others, but which 
never misses the good. Give us grace to 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

build the temple of our lives high enough 
and wide enough to take in every poor, 
lost sinner whp comes to our door seeking 
shelter from the storm! May the door to 
our guest chamber ever stand ajar, for 
then will our trysting with the Great Guest 
be the sweeter when He comes ! 

Fruitage 

Sometimes it seems as if we make very 
slow progress in building this part of our 
life-temple. It is so easy to see the faults 
of others! We wonder why Mary is so 
queer; and it certainly does seem strange 
that John should be a man of such peculiar 
characteristics. He had a good father and 
mother: what is the reason he does not 
follow in their footsteps? It must be he 
'* takes back'' to some unworthy ancestor 
of the long ago. We forget the time when 
Mary sent over the flowers, robbing her 
own plants, because we were to need them. 
The long, weary nights which John spent 
in caring for the neighbor who was sick do 
not impress us half as much as do the oc- 
casional lapses from what we term the 
straight road of right; and we have for- 
gotten all the hard years through which 
John and Mary have been working and 
sacrificing for their children, so that they 
might '*get an education.'' It does not 
seem to us we ever could live with either 
of them. And oh, the shame of it! when we 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

see them coming we feel like running away 
into the house, locking the door, pulling 
down the curtains, as if we were not at 
home, leaving them to knock and knock 
and go away sore and heartsick because 
they could not talk over with us some of 
the worrying things of their lives. 

That is the natural heart. But it is 
not the way He received us when we came 
knocking at His door. Our knock was so 
faint and timid; and yet He heard it and 
opened so quickly ! When we think of that, 
how poor and mean seems our inclination 
to hide from the one who needs us so ; and 
we make haste to smooth back the hair, 
to slip on the prettiest dress we have, and 
be ready at the door with a smile and a 
hearty ''God bless you!" 

Thus we have built into the guest- 
room of the soul a beautiful panel, all 
traced over with lilies; and I think the 
angels must rejoice when they look into 
this room, all radiant with love, and see 
how we long to make it a little heaven to 
the tired ones who enter it from afar! 
Each time we gain such a victory it is a 
little easier to open the heart's door to the 
needy one. And is not this one of the 
most encouraging things of all, that we 
should live so that God is able to see in us 
day by day a little more of grace, still more 
of patience with the shortcomings of others, 
a finer sense of the hard lives others are 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

leading, less of the rust of selfishness and 
more of the glow of the love that never 
faileth! This is the fruitage Jesus wants 
to see in us. 

Out on the farm we set out some beau- 
tiful apple trees. The season proved to be 
a good one, and every one of the trees 
lived. How we watched them, the laddie 
who had helped me set them out and I! 
How faithfully we tended them, digging 
about the roots and watching for any sign 
of the attack of an enemy: and the trees 
came into bearing. One tree, which had 
been especially thrifty, had now reached a 
diameter of six or seven inches, and, to 
our great joy, a goodly number of choice 
apples hung from its branches. If you 
have ever watched a tree you have set out 
with your own hands up through the years, 
you know how we rejoiced when we saw 
this fruit. So, it seems to me, the Savior 
must rejoice when He sees the promise of 
fruit in your life and mine. 

Then suddenly something happened to 
our dear little tree. The leaves began to 
fade. The branches took on a lifeless look. 
The trunk lost its healthy appearance. Oh, 
the sorrow of it all ! But most of grief came 
to us when we saw the roses fade from the 
cheek of the fruit! Half-grown they hung 
there, pale and withered! Our tree was 
dead! Its fruit spoiled forever by some 
unseen foe! 

112 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

It is an awful thing when a human soul 
fails to bear fruit! How the Master must 
grieve over such a disaster! And yet it 
does sometimes happen. Love grows cold. 
The spirit-life loses its vitality. The fruit 
which once promised so well comes to 
naught. The enemy of souls has stung the 
heart and it is dead! Oh, how close we 
need to keep to the source of life ! Feeding 
on His Word, holding communion with Him 
every moment, clinging to His mighty 
hand — this is the only way of coming at 
last to the harvest! 

Against Whom May the Door Be 
Closed? 

But surely we can not receive into our 
guest-room all who come! Who is the one 
we may shut out? This one with the 
stained and broken life, who has gone so far 
that society has little room for him? How 
can we let him into the sweet guest-cham- 
ber? 

A maker of violins had put his very 
best into an instrument which a great 
musician had ordered of him. '*Make it 
your very best. Spare no cost!'' had been 
the directions given the manufacturer; and 
he thought the violin he had made surely 
would satisfy the critical taste of his cus- 
tomer. But the musician came and tried 
the instrument. It did not please him, and 
« 113 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

with an expression of disgust he hurled the 
delicate thing down upon the floor, crush- 
ing it to fragments, and went away. For a 
long time the man who had made the 
violin sat there, grieved and disappointed 
that his efforts should have come to noth- 
ing. Then he gathered up the broken 
pieces and set himself to a greater task — 
the task of making out of the fragments a 
new instrument. When it was all done he 
sent for the musician and asked him to try 
this other violin; and now the man was 
enraptured with the tones which his bow 
drew from the strings. The music of the 
summer leaves fluttered from them; the 
laughing of the brook rippled at the touch 
of the bow; joy, sorrow, peace, fury, sun- 
shine, and storm — every expression of the 
passion of the human heart were in the 
new instrument. With a smile the mu- 
sician rose. 

^*You have succeeded!'* he said. '*I 
am satisfied! Tell me how it is that you 
could do this time what you did not do 
before?" 

''This is the very same violin, sir! 
Only it took more of patience to make it 
from those pieces! But you see it could 
be done!'* 

Sin may turn the life to ashes. Jesus 

Christ can take those dead, cold ashes and 

turn them into the brightest jewels! Sin 

may crush the life out of the beautiful in- 

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strument. The Christ can make of the 
fragments a harp which shall make the 
world, aye! heaven itself, thrill with 
melody! 

Turn him away? Yonder he comes 
now! The blur of evil is in his eyes. His 
feet shuffle along the street in the uncer- 
tain way that marks the blight of sin. 
His hand trembles. His brain reels on its 
throne. Oh, the awful waste when man- 
hood lies in ruin! On every feature you 
read the story of sin, sin, SIN! And he is 
headed straight for your door ! What now 
shall you do? Leave the fragments of the 
once beautiful instrument lying where they 
have fallen? How can you, with your 
poor, faulty, unlovely life, do anything for 
such a soul? It is true, you can not do it; 
but God, working in and through you, can 
do all things. In His strength you can 
help to rebuild the harp and bring back 
to it the music of heaven ! 

So open the door of your heart! Take 
the wanderer into the very guest-chamber 
of your life ! Think not of the muddy feet, 
the feet which have walked so far down 
the road of death; they will not soil the 
most delicate thing of your soul-temple, 
for God will not let it be so. Forget the 
dust of the world, thick though it has 
settled over the garments of the man who 
stands with outstretched hands, pleading 
with you in the name of the Master not to 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

turn him away! Not a speck of that dust 
will fall where it will harm you. Fragments 
are here, and only fragments. Fragments 
of a manhood once strong and noble. 
Fragments of opportunities rudely shat- 
tered by evil. Fragments of a babyhood 
holy and sacred as the heart of the mother 
who once rocked this man in her arms. 
Fragments of all that God ever made and 
put into a human soul! Yes, fragments; 
but, thanks be to His name, there are still 
fragments, and they may be gathered up 
and made whole again ! 

See, he is on his knees now! Kneel by 
his side. Listen! his seared lips are fram- 
ing the plea of the penitent! Cry aloud to 
God with him for mercy! Hark! the soul 
is going up in a mighty appeal for mercy! 
Mingle your prayer with his! Silence now! 
It is God's time. Let Him do His work! 
Oh, the eternal conflict waging everywhere 
between the spirit of light and the spirit 
of darkness! Which will it be, victory or 
defeat? Oh, Father of the lost, have pity, 
have pity and save, for the sake of Thy 
dear Son! He is worthy and Thou art 
able! 

He rises! A new light is in his face! 
The battle has been won! It is victory! 
Born again! Redeemed! Peace in the 
soul and a new purpose in the heart! Be- 
cause you opened your door! Had you 
kept it shut, heaven might have been the 
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poorer and your crown would have lost a 
jewel! 

We May Not Know 

Not always may we know what our 
hands have wrought. The tree we planted 
may not come to fruitage till we have gone 
away. The rosebush by the side of the 
door, watered by our hands, may not 
bloom in time for our eyes to behold its 
beauty. But some day we will see and be 
satisfied. 

Away down below the surface of the 
earth a man is tending an engine. It is 
dark down there, save as he now and then 
opens the door of his furnace to put in 
more coal. A bell rings out a signal, and 
he throws the throttle a little wider. An- 
other signal, and the wheels stop. 

** Are n't you lonely down here?'' you 
ask, thinking of the long hours which must 
pass before the man's day's work is done. 
**You have so little company!" 

A smile. 

'*0h, I am never lonely! You see, I 
keep thinking what I am helping to do! 
I am doing my part toward building this 
grand cathedral! Every time the bell 
rings, it is my signal to lift another block 
of marble to the walls. It is my part, 
though I do not see it now! When it is all 
done, I shall look up and be glad I could 
help a little!" 

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Lifting blocks of marble we do not see! 
Helping to build, yet not seeing the com- 
pleted work this side eternity! But then 
we shall know; then our eyes, now holden, 
shall behold the glory we have helped to 
win for the Master! So we will go on seek- 
ing the lost! God never stops; why should 
we? 

In the anthracite coal region of Penn- 
sylvania the little child of a Hungarian 
miner was lost. A whole troop of State 
police was directed to join in the search, 
and for miles and miles, on foot and on 
horse, those soldiers of the Commonwealth 
scoured the country, never resting till the 
baby was found and returned to its parents. 

No child of God is of such little worth 
that God does not hear and answer its cry ! 
You and I are His messengers. Should we 
let the call go unheeded? 

Flowers for the Life-Temple 

It was a bare old farmhouse, with 
never a vine or a flower growing near. In 
the front yard a few apple trees grew; but 
they were scraggly and bore no fruit that 
could be used. The windows of the house 
were dark and small and dreary looking. 
Fine for location, it seemed dismal and 
uninviting. Few visitors ever stopped at 
its doors. 

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A new man came to the old place. 
He lifted the house from the ground to a 
finer foundation. He put in larger windows. 
He built a deep porch at the side, and a 
bay-window let in the sunshine when the 
day was westering. Best of all, he set out 
many vines and planted flowers. Among 
other vines was a purple clematis, which 
soon threw its beautiful blossoms over the 
front porch. Passersby began to note the 
change. Especially did the clematis attract 
them, for never before had such a flower 
blossomed in that valley. Halting by the 
side of the road, they would ask the lady 
with the sweet face who spent much time 
in the yard: *'Will you please tell us what 
that lovely vine is? It is so beautiful! 
Where can we get one like it?** 

With a smile, she told them all about 
it, and they went away to think and to 
dream about the new plant and to plan 
for one, to be set out at their own homes. 
Now all up and down the valley you may 
see the clematis blossoming over the 
porches of the farmhouses, ever telling 
their stories of love and grace and beauty. 

But a more beautiful flower was planted 
by the man and woman of that quiet coun- 
try home. Their simple, earnest lives re- 
produced themselves in many a heart 
which had long been cold. The purple 
clematis was beautiful. Grander by far 
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1 



the joy which radiated from the souls of 
the two, helping and lifting heavenward 
through all the years. 

Is your home a place men love to visit? 
Do they turn to it for hope and help and 
cheer? Flowers around the house attract 
and inspire to better things. Flowers in 
the heart win and woo to heaven! Truth 
is beautiful. Sincerity binds men with 
cords of steel. Even a child responds to 
the mother love. 

Good Cheer 

She was only a slip of a girl, too young 
by far for the place into which the stress 
of time had forced her — that of waiting at 
the tables of a public restaurant. Two 
ladies sat at one of the tables at midday. 
Somehow a mistake had been made in the 
order of one of the visitors. 

''I thought I told you to bring me 
coffee, not tea!** 

The words were flung out with a steel- 
cold ring that made the little maiden 
tremble. 

''You waiters are always so stupid! 
Take this back and bring me what I or- 
dered!" 

The girl's face flushed scarlet, then she 

turned ashen-pale. Her hands shook more 

than before, and the cup she started to 

take back fell from the tray, spilling its 

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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

contents over the beautiful silk dress of the 
lady who sat next to the one who had 
spoken these harsh words. 

A startled look shot over the face of the 
girl. She broke into tears. Her heart had 
been ready to break before; this was all 
that was needed to make her cup of sor- 
row full. She was sure she would now be 
complained of and receive her discharge. 
But the lady, half rising, brushed the 
flood from her ruined dress, saying very 
tenderly: 

** Never mind, dearie! Don't you feel 
bad! You did not mean to do it, I know.'* 

Then she drew the girl down close to 
her and kissed her on the hot cheek. 

A sweet flower, making holy the temple 
of that lady's life! It brought a bit of 
sunshine to the shadow of a lonely heart. 

Then, too, let's give hope a place in the 
heart-life. Oh, for the power to see the 
bright side of things! 

For days it had been raining. We were 
all shut indoors. The clouds still hung 
heavy in the sky. How eagerly we had 
been waiting and watching for signs that 
the storm was over! From his watch- 
tower our cheery-hearted little boy sud- 
denly cried : 

'* Mamma, Mamma! It's going to 
stop! I see the blue sky way off yonder!" 

Strain our eyes as we might, none of 
us who were older could catch the twinkle 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

of the blue beyond the shadows; but our 
little man was right. He saw the sunny 
side of the cloud! God grant that this 
blessed gift of seeing the silver lining of 
every cloud may be his through life! 

Over the fence a shower of roses fell 
by the side of the road. A tired little girl, 
passing that way, caught sight of them, 
and her heart hungered for just one! 

'*You wouldn't be wilHng for me to 
pick just one, would you?" she asked of 
the lady over the fence. 

''Lots of them, childie!'* came back the 
cheery answer. ''And Ull help you pick 
them! You pick, and I '11 be your helper!*' 

And the little girl's arms were filled full. 
She carried them across the village to the 
railway station. Through the subway to 
the city she bore them. Across the great 
bridge to her home in the suburbs, and 
ever^-^'here the roses made glad the hearts 
of all who saw them. Lavishly the girl 
gave of her treasures to all who would 
take them. The cars were heavy with the 
perfume of the lovely flowers; and the 
sweetest fragrance of all was the love 
planted in the weary child's heart by the 
kiss which warmed her cheek as the last 
rose was laid on her bundle! The fra- 
grance of that rose will last across time to 
eternity, for it was the rose of service, 
planted by the hands of the Christ Him- 
self. Plant the red rose of service by the 
122 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

door of your Hfe-temple ! It stands for 
life — the life He gave for us all! 

Purity of heart. Give it a place in the 
temple you are building. The power to 
come into touch with the world and not 
be harmed by it is one of God's rarest 
gifts. Let's give it a place in the cosiest 
corner by the wall of our Hfe-temple. 

At a certain place, close by the water's 
edge, an arch of cement had been built. 
It seemed so strong when first erected that 
no one ever thought it could be disturbed 
by flood or foe. The watchful eye of a 
man passing one day discovered that the 
arch was beginning to crumble at the very 
water's edge. With his fingers he picked 
a number of pieces from the masonry. 
The beautiful thing was doomed. What 
was it that had worked this ruin? Men of 
science studied over it a long time; then 
they decided that it was the bite of an 
alkali in the water which lapped the foot 
of the arch, coming into contact with the 
air, which had spoiled the masonry. By 
many thoughtful men it is now believed 
that to the action of this foe upon the 
seemingly impregnable rock is due the 
destruction of some of the great dams of 
this country, with the attendant terrible 
loss of life and property which has so 
startled the world. Through some tiny 
crevice the water seeps from above, bear- 
ing with it the alkali in solution. The 
123 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

moment the atmosphere touches it, the 
strength of the chemical is increased, and 
it begins its work of disintegration. Scien- 
tists have few more difficult problems than 
to find some way of overcoming this deadly 
enemy. 

Just so fatal is the touch of sin, unless 
the soul is guarded against it. How shall 
we be sure that evil will not undermine 
and lay waste the temple of the soul? We 
must touch the world every day. It is 
part of our very life-work to meet it some- 
where as long as we live. We must come in 
contact with men and women, doing our 
best to win them for the Kingdom. But 
what if we are ourselves won away from 
our purpose? What if the stain of sin 
comes upon our souls? What if Gkxi's 
plan for us should be spoiled by the con- 
taminating touch of evil? 

There is only one way by which this 
may be avoided — possessing the love of 
God in the heart. 

Men have sought everywhere for some 
material which will so envelop wires and 
cables of metal that they will not be 
ruined by rust. They have found it in 
gutta-percha. Wrapped in this substance, 
wires may be sunk to the bottom of the 
sea and not be harmed. 

Jesus did not pray that His followers 
might be taken out of the world; they 
could not be spared that way. His plea 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

was, '*That Thou shouldst keep them 
from the evil/' And then He added, 
"Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy 
Word is truth/* PanopHed thus, we may 
go forth day by day close-pressed by sin, 
yet unscathed by it! The dust of the mine 
may fall thick upon the cheek of the pure- 
white flower, but the dew and the shower 
of the night will wash it clean before morn- 
ing! Sweet, crimson-washed flower of 
purity, thank God I may adorn the temple 
of my soul with thee! 

Your Alabaster Box 

It is not a year since a man and woman 
were wedded in one of our great cities. 
Just before the ceremony was performed, 
the bridegroom threw about the neck of 
the one he loved a rope of pearls which, 
when clasped, reached to the floor. At her 
neck other brilliants sparkled, the gift of 
his love. Not satisfied with these, he 
placed in her hands securities valued at 
four million dollars. So the flood-tide of 
his devotion was poured out upon the ob- 
ject of his affection. Surely he must have 
loved her, we say, for it is only when the 
heart is deeply stirred that it gives so 
lavishly. 

Now listen to another story of giving. 
Tears were in the eyes of many at a min- 
isterial conference recently held in one of 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

our States when a little pasteboard box, 
carefully tied with a piece of twine, was 
opened in the presence of those in at- 
tendance. The minister who brought the 
little package stated that it had been 
placed in his hands by a woman whose 
name he had promised not to reveal, with 
the request that he should give it to the 
missionary treasurer of the denomination. 
Upon being opened, the box was found to 
contain one thousand dollars in United 
States bank-notes. A slip of paper ac- 
companying stated the specific purposes 
to which the money was to be applied. 

Those who knew with how much of 
sacrifice and prayer the little hoard had 
been saved looked upon the incident as 
indeed the breaking of an alabaster box 
of ointment, very precious, upon the head 
and the feet of the Lord she loved so well, 
for it was the saving of a lifetime. Sweet 
flower of love for the great lost world out 
yonder! How its rich fragrance rises to 
heaven, like the perfume of a flower 
bruised in the chalice of self-sacrifice! 
How it stirs the heart to purer devotion to 
the Christ! Surely its fragrance never will 
be lost. 

Not many years ago one of the world's 
greatest pearls came into the possession 
of one who was a lover of gems. To re- 
ceive his treasure, the man had a costly 
casket made, with many a lock, opened 
126 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

by the use of a number of keys. But now, ' 
where should he keep his casket? His 
present home seemed far too poor a place 
for the hiding of a pearl like this, and he 
built a palace for the purpose. Here, in a 
secret chamber, on a table of white marble, 
he placed the casket. Only trusted and 
bidden guests could ever feast their eyes 
upon this pearl of great price. The head 
of the nation offered him immense wealth, 
rank, and honor if he would but transfer 
to him the beautiful gem. No such offer 
tempted him. 

Then, through a change of political 
fortune, the owner of the pearl was forced 
to flee from the country. In his bosom 
he hid his treasure and hastened to a dis- 
tant city. Here he one day gathered a 
little company of friends to whom he pur- 
posed to show the lovely pearl. With 
eager fingers he turned key after key till 
he reached the heart of the casket. A pal- 
lor like that of death spread over his face, 
the face a moment ago flushed with the 
red of pride. Why did his hands tremble 
so now? Ah! A shadow had fallen upon 
his gem! It was no longer a thing of 
beauty! Soon it would crumble into dust! 
A blight had stricken it forever ! 

Yes, the brightest jewel at last loses 

its luster in the hot crucible of God ! The 

string of pearls tossed over the shoulders 

of the bride will one day pale with the 

127 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

mildew of passing years! The millions in 
stocks and bonds will take wing to them- 
selves and disappear; but the mite won 
by aching fingers and saved for the Master 
will never lose its beauty! In many a 
humble home to-night in city and in 
country springs the blossom of love divine. 
It may be seen by few mortal eyes, but 
God sees it, and He will give it place among 
the gems of His Kingdom ! 

From Life's Watchtower 

''Take long looks, away to the hills, 
every day!" a physician said to one who 
came to him for advice in the day when 
his sight was failing. ''You have been 
looking at things nearby so long — things 
that are so small! It has injured your 
eyes; and there is no better way of bring- 
ing back their sight than to turn them 
away to some object miles distant and hold 
them there as long as you can!" 

Long looks ! How we need them in our 
soul-Ufe. More and more spiritual short- 
sightedness seems to be coming over the 
men and women of our times. The soul 
seems to be losing its power to see the 
great things of life. We have centered our 
thought so upon the small things of time 
and sense! 

So let us build into the fabric of our 

temple not made with hands a watch- 

128 



4 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

tower from which we may take far looks 
out over God's great world. To this, on 
the days when the lamp of hope flickers 
and bids fair to go out, and when the heart 
loses its faith in men, let us climb and 
watch afar for signs that God is still in 
the heavens and that all things are yet 
well. It is we who are wrong. The short 
look has hurt our vision. There are yet 
many good men and true in the world, 
men who are the salt of the earth, the light 
shining clear into dark places. The far 
look is what we need to give us right 
views of God and His dealings with the 
world. A little while up there with Him 
will fit us to come down, heartened, 
cheered, and ready once more for life's 
little round of duty. 

^'Down again? Why should we come 
down? Why may we not stay up here 
forever and dream and rejoice T' 

''It is a good thing,'' says Dr. George 
Murray Colville, "to go often to the 
upper room, but it is better not to stay 
there always. That would weaken the 
heart and unfit it for service — service for 
God and the hastening of His Kingdom!" 

And is it not true? The high tower for 
long looks Godward and manward; the 
lower rooms for service for Christ and our 
fellows! 



129 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

The Making of a Bell 

For the making of a bell, the best skill 
in the world is sought. Only those who 
are artists in their profession can be en- 
trusted with this work. So difficult a task 
is it that not long ago one of the great men 
of the world expressed the opinion that 
''rarely, if ever, are bells in tune/' From 
the preparation of the material to the 
tuning all must be done with the utmost 
care, if we would have bells that are at 
once sweet, harmonious, and durable. 
Once a bell is thus made, it will stand al- 
most any strain without injury. 

Have you forgotten the crumbling of 
the Campanile of St. Mark's about ten 
years ago? For a thousand years this was 
the most conspicuous landmark of all the 
country round about ; but it collapsed and 
came to the ground with a mighty crash, 
carrying with it the statue of the angel of 
peace which had crowned its summit, as 
well as the beautiful belfry of marble with 
its world-famed bells. Surely, you will 
say, those bells never could ring out their 
glad peals over the world again! For nine 
years the work of restoring the Campanile 
has been going on, and now the task has 
been completed. Once more the sweet- 
sounding bells have been swung to their 
old place in the belfry. Once more they 
ring out their '* Glory to God in the high- 
130 



J 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

est!'' But this was possible solely because 
of the exceeding great care with which the 
bells had been made in the beginning. 

First of all in the process comes the 
making of the mold. How carefully must 
this work be done ! A single mistake on the 
part of the workmen and failure would 
follow, resulting, perhaps, in a great ex- 
plosion, with attending loss of life and 
property. Many a building has been 
blown to fragments through the blunder 
of men in making the mold of a great bell. 
And so very carefully must the core be 
made which is to give size and shape to 
the inside of the bell. Deep in the pit of 
the furnace, at its very mouth, the core is 
placed. With great nicety must the hood 
of iron be adjusted, giving fashion to the 
outside of the bell. Patiently must the 
metal be mixed and tempered and heated 
before it is at last led out of the furnace 
to the molds prepared for the casting of 
the bell. After that is all done, days more 
must be spent in tuning the bell. Flake 
after flake of the metal must be ground 
away, until the proper pitch is obtained. 
Only the trained ear of a master may de- 
termine when that moment has come. 
But at last it will come! The bell is ready 
to be lifted to its place in the tower, ready 
for its sweet service through the years. 

From foundation wall to turret we have 
built our temple of the soul. Under God's 
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WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

direction, we have come to the tower of 
the bells. Patience, good cheer, hope, 
love — all the graces which He prizes most 
have we tried to bring to perfection, as 
the Master Builder has given us the plan 
and as the Holy Spirit has pointed out the 
way! Not yet is all done; ever must we 
keep doing! But now we have come to 
the crowning effort! May He still lay 
His hand on ours and fit us for the joy of 
ringing out over lifers ways the glory and 
the beauty of Christ's evangel! 

Deep in the workshop of the soul we 
will let God shape the fashion of our 
chimes. It may be dark down there. We 
may hold the breath, lest we mistake the 
meaning of some sacred task we are to do. 
Father of us all, guide our hands through 
the darkness! May the shadow of every 
experience only tend to make us better 
fitted to sound out the appeal to men! 
We would pray Thee that Thou shouldst 
grant that no impatient word, no rebellious 
thought, nor even look, may spoil the 
beauty of our work! Thou knowest how 
we love Thee! Keep us and help us to be 
worthy to sound out Thy praise through 
all the years Thou givest us here! We 
would that we might be so near to Thee 
that when the day is done, and we fold 
our hands to rest, the likeness shall be 
complete. When we speak the words, '4 
shall be satisfied when I wake in Thy like- 
132 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

ness/* may it be more than a pleasant 
dream; may the hope be swallowed up 
in fruition! 

And, then, fit and temper all that is to 
go into the holy thing we call our evangel ! 
We can not do it of ourselves. Should we 
try, our sin-stained fingers would miss of 
their task and bring naught but failure. 

"Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes; 
Shine through the gloom and point me to the 

skies; 
Heav'n*s morning breaks and earth's vain shadows 

flee; 
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!" 

Give us, day by day, the earnestness, 
the patience, the gentleness of spirit which 
shall fit us to sound forth the praises of 
our King, and thus woo and win souls to 
Thee! 

In Thine own good time, too, bring the 
bells of our souls into tune with ourselves 
and with Thee. May no discordant note 
hurt the ear of one who listens ! We know 
this may mean that Thou shouldst send us 
pain of body, mind, and spirit, even as the 
bells of time are ground and shaped and 
polished with infinite care to make them 
sweet and full and true! Help us to say 
through it all, ''Even so, Father; for so it 
seemeth good in Thy sight!*' 

So some day we shall stand complete 
in Thee. Then from the high tower of our 
133 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

souls shall ring out the call to God! We 
know not if our place shall be small or 
great — it matters not; Thou knowest, and 
all is well. It may be ours simply to halt 
some tired toiler in life's narrow valley, 
shut in by the hills, and summon him to 
thought of Thee for a little while. It may 
be our note shall be the humblest of all. 
We know that often the sweetest note 
in the chime of bells is the one no common 
ear can hear. Thou wilt surely hear, so 
help us that the note may ever be clear, 
pure, and sweet! There will be other 
bells to thunder out the giant tones which 
shall shake the earth. Each in his place; 
if we but fill the niche Thou hast for us, 
it will be enough! Grant that some child» 
wandering on the thorny hillsides of life, 
or straying in the meadow, catching the 
melody of the music we shall make, may 
lift his eyes from the flowers he is picking 
long enough to look up and see Thy dear 
face and be drawn heavenward ! And give 
us that we may ever do our very best for 
Thee! 

Strike Thou the keys; we would yield 
ourselves wholly to Thee! 

For this temple we have been building 
is for Thee. Come in. Thou who art from 
everlasting to everlasting, God! Fill our 
whole being! Take possession of our 
souls! Be not a guest for the passing 
hour; dwell with us! Be to us all, and 
134 



a 



WITHOUT SOUND OF HAMMER 

more than all, until at last we are swal- 
lowed up in Thee ! 

"Not a brief glance, I beg, a passing word; 
But, as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord — 
Familiar, condescending, patient, free — 
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me! 

"I need Thy presence every passing hour; 
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power? 
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? 
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with 
me!'' 



135 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 












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